Article: The Emperor's Same Old Clothes.(Junichiro Koizumi, newly elected Prime Minister;)(Liberal Democratic Party in Japan)(Brief Article)

When I covered Japan as a correspondent in the 1980s and 1990s, I used to like listening to the old Liberal Democrats out on the stump, or when they swilled cheap sake with the party faithful in local political clubs. Their spiel was three-fourths bunkum, of course. But these were seasoned pols, and they knew the way into the hearts and minds of their constituents. At bottom there was something cruel in these scenes, for your average LDP candidate was nothing if not a master manipulator. But they were also mirrors. A Liberal Democrat peddling snake oil in the prefectures could teach you something about the Japanese--about the hopes they harbored, about what they wanted ...

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