And This Is for the People Who Believe that Abe’s Heart Is on His Right and His Brain Is Time-shared with a Zebra Mussel

I have never been impressed by Shinzo Abe, but I was never impressed by Junichiro Koizumi either, so I assume that the LDP members that have been supporting Abe know something that I don’t know and proceed on that assumption. And that is why I’ve been dismissing all the hopes and fears in liberal happytalk around what Abe might do around the Senkakus, history issues, Yasukuni and the like as poppycock. Abe does have a long-held strategic outlook, Ian Bremmer reminds us. and the Japan-US and Japan-South Korea relationships are, in that order albeit at quite a distance in levels of importance, key elements of that perspective. And that is why Abe is not digging into the LDP not-quite-campaign-promise policy potpourri to hold an official Takeshima day ceremony on February 22, according to Asahi Shimbun.

Could Asahi be wrong? Yes. And an incoming asteroid could destroy most life on earth. But I’ll eat a Texas Hat if I’m wrong. And an asteroid could render that wager irrelevant.