Friday, December 12, 2008

Tase Yasuhiro Said It

So do not blame me.

"The most important tasks for the newly elected prime minister are a policy address and a press conference where he presents his ideas to the Japanese public. There are no professional speech writers in Japan, however; the PM's speeches are written by bureaucrats. The main task of bureaucrats is to explain why they cannot execute such and such policies. How can they write for the prime minister a speech that appeals to public sentiment?"
Tase, formerly of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, has further choice observations and opinions in his AJISS commentary on why Japan has so many prime ministers.

For one who is forever branded with the faint praise of offering up "politics with a cynical edge," it is a delicious meal of professional snark.

1 comment:

Jan Moren said...

"The main task of bureaucrats is to explain why they cannot execute such and such policies."

Silly me, thinking that the main task of bureaucrats is to implement policy as decided by elected officials, not come up with excuses to refuse doing so.

Perhaps a future cabinet could start with Japans problems from this end for a change; they might want to look up the original meaning of "decimation" and see if that won't make the bureaucracy a little more compliant.