Quick Note: “Right-Wing” LDP Looks to Tanigaki to Lead It Out of the Wilderness? Figures

The most recent reports have metrosexual, preternaturally youthful sexagenarian—and notable dove—Sadakazu Tanigaki declaring for the LDP Presidency with party elders’ blessings. It’s somewhat depressing, if, with 20/20 hindsight, inevitable that preternaturally youthful baby Nobuteru Ishihara wimp out, but it’s more distressing that his fellow quinquagenerian Shigeru Ishiba continues to dither on the sidelines. Their reluctance to challenge their elders continues even after the historic defeat.

The silver lining is that a Tanigaki leadership will lay to rest once and for all imbecilic pronouncements such as, “Analysts say the party seeks to reverse Japan’s growing isolation in the region under decades of right-wing Liberal Democratic rule.” Any report that is able to ignore all of Japan’s relationship with its Northeast Asia neighbors since no later than its historical accord with China in 1972 under Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka except the fallout from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s stubborn insistence on visiting Yasukuni Shrine is not to be trusted. More to the subject of this post, I cannot help but point out, the LDP switched leadership from a dove (Kozumi) to a hawk (Shinzo Abe) to a dove (Yasuo Fukuda) to a hawk (Taro Aso) before it yielded the stage to the DPJ—which, incidentally, is the closest thing to the old-school, Sankakudaifuku LDP in Japan today, with its own Darkseid overlord and powerful faction leaders—unlike the desiccated “LDP” that desperately needs a business model remake. More about this later, I hope.