EDITORIAL: Hatoyama's rhetoric

"I want to protect people's lives."

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama started his policy speech at the Diet on Friday with this rather unusual beginning.

After more than four months since his Democratic Party of Japan took power, the excitement of his initial days has already withered, and the Cabinet approval rating continues to fall. How is the prime minister to make a political recovery? As he embarked on Diet deliberations for the national budget for fiscal 2010, the prime minister chose to speak passionately about his policy ideals.

He wants to bring change to the sort of society where couples give up having children because the economic burden is cause for unease. He wants to protect "the lives of those who are born." He wants to recreate a community in which losing a job does not mean one loses the opportunity to interact with others. He wants to protect "working people's lives."

This speech was an attempt to view the prime minister's pet theory of yuai (fraternity) from yet another angle. He stressed the need for creating a "new type of public space," in which people support each other, as well as the creation of "an economy for human beings" that turns medicine and health care into growth industries.

His speech spelled out his intention to achieve a paradigm shift from the Liberal Democratic Party's governing policies.

The speech was delivered in a style totally different from past prime ministers' efforts. Previous speeches tended to be more of a laundry list of the various ministries' policy agendas. Instead, Hatoyama chose to speak of ideals, sometimes so lofty that we felt like squirming in our seats.

It is an important part of leadership to speak of lofty values and appeal to the public's empathy. We understand how the prime minister sought to invoke a freshness into his speech, mindful of the fact that that his party achieved the first meaningful change of government in half a century.

However, we glimpse behind his eloquence the dire straits his administration has fallen into, which made it impossible to speak about specific policy substance, even if he wanted to. Many people already realize this. But he did not offer any explanation in his speech. That is why we feel dismayed.

The DPJ called its election manifesto "a covenant with the people." What has it achieved, and what has it given up? What does the party intend to do? Were these not the things the public most wanted to hear? Hatoyama should have given a progress report about the party's covenant with the people and prospects for the future, but he offered little in this regard.

The voters chose the DPJ because they placed their hopes in the party's manifesto, but that does not mean the public agreed with everything in the manifesto.

The first four months of the new administration was filled with issues, ranging from the huge shift toward governance led by politicians rather than bureaucrats, Japan-U.S. relations to political fund scandals involving Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa. How does the administration view these months? Unless Hatoyama talks about them in a straightforward manner, there is no way for the public to know which part of the "covenant" is still alive.

Hatoyama apologized for his own political fund scandal, but made no reference to another implicating Ozawa, which has led to the arrest of an incumbent Diet lawmaker. This was regrettable.

Be it the manifesto or the scandals, if the prime minister keeps avoiding speaking about them, we must question his awareness as leader of the government.

The individual issues must be brought to light during the Diet deliberations. We ask the prime minister and the ruling coalition to respond to the debate in good faith. If not, all the lofty ideals will be empty words. This is no time for the prime minister or the DPJ to feel good about the pretty words of his speech.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 30