Supportive Hatoyama casts lot with Ozawa

I don't know if Ichiro Ozawa, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan, has asked Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to trust him. But at Saturday's party convention, Hatoyama said, "I trust Secretary-General Ozawa." He went on to say that he had personally encouraged Ozawa to "fight (the prosecutors)."

It's nice of the prime minister and his party secretary-general to keep up a relationship of mutual trust. But in reality, they are more like two men who have sealed a pact to share the same destiny, without care for what this may do to their nation.

Newspapers are already clamoring about the administration's "declaration of war" on the prosecutors for an "all-out war." In this sort of full-scale grudge match, the heaviest collateral damage is suffered by the people.

The regular session of the Diet opens Monday and will focus on the fiscal 2010 budget and other issues. The nation is riddled with problems: strained relations with the United States, a job market that is yet to improve, and an economy in danger of sinking into a double-dip recession.

Yet all these urgent problems will languish on the back burner if money and politics are allowed to predominate in Diet debate.

People in power must understand the weight of their words. "An imperial mandate is like perspiration; once it is released, it can never be reabsorbed," an old Chinese adage warns.

This applies to Hatoyama's inappropriate exhortation to Ozawa to "fight," as the prime minister is the top official of the nation's executive branch, which means he also heads all public prosecutors offices.

In throwing his full support behind Ozawa, Hatoyama came across like a co-endorser of Ozawa's "debt," namely the cloud of suspicion Ozawa is now under. Until Ozawa is cleared of all suspicion, Hatoyama stands the risk of taking the fall with Ozawa.

Was Hatoyama convinced of Ozawa's innocence when he encouraged him to fight? Or was he simply being irresponsible to the nation? I can only speculate.

The vernacular Asahi Shimbun printed this senryu on Sunday: "Mujina (Badgers) sharing the same hole/ Go in and out of the hole in single file." In Japanese, "mujina sharing the same hole" usually refers to unsavory characters who are basically no different from one another even when they don't look alike. If corrupt politicians may be likened to mujina, one could say a countless number of them have fallen down the "hole" of money scandals to date.

It is painful to watch the vitality of a new regime being sapped by the same old scandals that have been around for as long as anyone can remember.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 18