Translating Noonan into Japanese
Posted by ampontan on Friday, May 16, 2008
WRITING IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL about the Republicans in the U.S., Peggy Noonan observed:
Most party leaders in Washington are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in ‘78 or ‘82 or ‘94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Richard Nixon, everything came back to Alger Hiss.
It struck me that the same passage could be used to describe politics right now in Japan, for both parties:
Most party leaders in Tokyo are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in ‘78 or ‘82 or ‘94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Ozawa Ichiro, everything comes back to Tanaka Kakuei.
You could insert just about any politician of any party in Japan in that last sentence, of course, but you get the point.
It doesn’t have anything to do with Japan, but if you want to read Noonan’s column, it’s here.
