The Meaning of the Leadership Vacuum in the Embassies

President Obama has announced Jon Huntsman’s nomination as Ambassador to China. In the United States, it is justifiably regarded as a political coup of the first order. He is a moderate Republican governor of a socially conservative state (Utah), accentuating the inclusiveness of the Obama administration at the expense of the ever-shrinking moderate wing of the GOP. Many people also believe that he is uniquely suited to his new role (pending Senate confirmation) because he is fluent in Mandarin from his Mormon missionary work in Taiwan—no off-color comments about a “new missionary position” please; this is a serious blog—and it certainly doesn’t hurt that China and Taiwan are on excellent terms these days. What has received less, indeed little, attention is the very fact that the United States has been without an ambassador in Beijing for four months since Clark Randt resigned on January 20.

China is not alone. Thomas Schieffer resigned on the same day as Ambassador to Japan, where my formidably negative powers of prediction have produced yet another turnaround and we are waiting once again for Joseph Nye to make up his mind, or so I’ve been told. Now, there’s been a wholesale delay of political appointees in the Obama administration, so ambassadors in principle are the least of its worries. But how can the most important bilateral relationship and the most important bilateral partnership have been without U.S. Ambassadors for four months without anybody noticing?

In fact, it is the strategic importance of the relationship/partnership from national security and economic viewpoints—increasingly convergent in these turbulent times—itself that is the cause of this benign neglect. For the major issues are too important to be left to the discretion of the embassies, yet there are no raging controversies that require micromanagement at the local level. Place this fact against the historical background where progress in telecommunications and air transport have already rendered much of traditional diplomacy obsolete, and you have a situation that can easily tolerate a leadership vacuum in both embassies as long as the various departments are properly staffed.

Not that any warm body will do, though, since there’s the symbolic value. That means, however, that the authorities must come up with someone with sufficient gravitas and the patience to serve out a largely ceremonial role in admittedly pleasant quarters—unless something erupts and there’s a need for high-profile, in situ damage control. That’s not easy.

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And no, I didn’t post this just because I wanted to write “new missionary position”. You don’t think I’m that juvenile, do you?

Iwakuma Is “as Thin as a Flag Pole”? That Got Me to Wonderin’

The rivalry between Japan and South Korea extends a lot deeper than who scores the most runs in a game. There is still lingering friction between the countries because Japan invaded Korea and officially annexed it in 1910. The Japanese did not leave until after World War II ended in 1945.

Although Japan left more than six decades ago, there are still Koreans who remember those years or who have been told stories about the experience. The countries have a relationship, but it is more a grudging association than a friendly rapport.

Now the Japanese and the South Koreans will have to wait four years before they potentially meet in another Classic. The wait will undoubtedly feel much longer for the South Koreans. But the Japanese will savor every day between now and then because they can call themselves the best in the world. Suzuki made sure of that.

This story implies a symmetry that isn’t there. If you don’t believe me, here’s a thought experiment: Which would have been more satisfying to the average Korean/Japanese fan, beating the Japanese/Korean team for the championship or the U.S. team?

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Incidentally, Iwakuma is listed at 86 kilos, or about 190 pounds, not the “169 pounds” that made “Iwakuma [look] as thin as a flag pole as he stood on the mound.” He’s thin, but no one actually watching the game would have mistaken him for a flagpole, or even Randy Johnson. This is but a small example of the dangers of replacing real journalism with your imagination.

Tom Daschle Out; I Told You So (Yeah, Right)

AB reminds me that I called it right when I said that Tom Daschle would withdraw as HSS Secretary nominee. Right, HAHA… the only problem being that I chickened out and began to think that he would make it after all, as my response to MTC’s comment shows. In my defense, I note that everybody appeared to feel the same way, so his withdrawal took the whole world by surprise.

In any case, I don’t feel particularly vindicated. One report raised the NYT editorial that ripped into Daschle as the precipitating event and it may be so, but I think that the immediate cause of his fall was White House Performance Officer nominee Nancy Killefer’s nanny-tax predicament. It would not have been surprising if the White House felt that the added burden of yet another tax delinquency issue was too much weight for the new Obama administration to bear. In any case, when Killefer stepped off, there was no way that Daschle could stay on. I’m playing a what-if game here, but I suspect that he would have made it to harbor if he had been the only one out there.

This is yet another example that illustrates the difficulties of calling the outcome of political events. Simply put, sh*t happens. (Now that wasn’t too salty, was it?)

Incidentally, there’s an interesting side issue here. AB wonders why similar cases have run within the two most recent Democratic administrations—the Clinton administration with its nannygates and the Obama administration with its tax delinquents. Well, I guess nannygate is what happens when they unleash a seasoned opposition research team on highly successful female professionals-people that the Clinton administration made an extra effort to recruit. Tax delinquency may be what happens when there’s something wrong with the vetting team’s checklist.

Then why aren’t we seeing nannygate this time around? Perhaps they’ve learned from the Clinton experience and are asking the right questions. But Killefer tripped up on what could be considered a nanny-tax compound issue. So what gives? And here I am getting into highly speculative territory. What if the Obama nominees happen to be relatively nanny-free, relying more on the extended family? Note that Obama’s mother-in-law is moving into the nanny-less White House. Or more do-it-(all-)yourself than the professional women recruited by the Clinton administration? Does this have anything to do with their cultural backgrounds? As a related question, is there a matriarchal bias, albeit unconscious, in the Obama administration? And what if all this rubs off on the rest of the Americans? Now that would be the ultimate in role models.

If All Else Fails, Secretary of State, Dial East Asia

For once, the English-language media—and a wire service at that—trailed the Japanese media on political events in the United States, as AP reported that Japan, South Korea and China were to be slated for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first overseas visit. To be fair, Clinton’s first trip to Japan had first appeared in a U.S. media story as a throwaway quote regarding the need to assuage Japanese fears of abandonment. But what really caught my eye was this:

Asia has not been a traditional first destination for new secretaries of state, who often start their official travels in the capitals of longtime U.S. allies in Europe or in the Middle East.

But with Vice President Joe Biden heading to Europe this week for a security conference in Germany and special envoy George Mitchell having already visited the Middle East, Clinton has been largely freed from the strictures of past practice.

And don’t forget Richard Holbrooke.

The White House should hire this Matthew Lee as head of protocol; someone has to prevent this from turning into a game of musical chairs. After all, any journalist who has the tact to write a line like largely freed from the strictures of past practice deserves—in both senses of the word—the job.

I Think Tom Daschle Is Going to Bow Out “Voluntarily”

It must be damage control time. If Tim Geithner looked careless, Daschle sounds at best like a no-frills version of Marie Antoinette. Let’s how Obama makes his way out of this one. It’s not a good sign for the new Obama administration, if so business-as-usual, that the leak is coming before the leap.

Governors, Mayors Want the Money—a Story We’ve Heard Before

Washington Monthly tells us that Republican governors and mayors are pushing for the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package even as Congressional Republicans are united in opposition. Kinda reminds you of the Japanese governors and mayors lobbying to keep the gasoline tax surcharge, doesn’t it?

I don’t know how this helps my understanding of things, but I thought that many of you would be interested in this national/local dichotomy.

Caroline Kennedy Follow-up

The anonymous comment on this December post (should I be flattered that there’s someone whose interest extends back into my archives?) misses the obvious point that Caroline Kennedy vaulted to the top of the heap—most notably ahead of even Cuomo—mainly on the basis of name recognition. The dynastic impulse exists everywhere—it's not the genes by the way, unless you are speaking in terms of evolutionary psychology—and it’s undoubtedly stronger in Japan, but so do countercurrents. For example, I understand that there is a strong movement in the DPJ to forbid its Diet members from passing on their electoral districts.

Incidentally, I was surprised that Kennedy pulled out. Even if, as some reports suggest, she didn’t have a chance, she should have stayed in, then accepted defeat gracefully. I thought that the public relations gauntlet that she was running served as a quasi-primary of sorts and would legitimate her ascension, assuming that Governor Paterson wound up selecting her. As it is, she just looks naïve, confused, and ill-served by her advisers.

At Least Our Emperor Comes Out to Give the Answers Himself

A Kennedy spokesman drafted seven written answers to the eight questions submitted by Politico to the 51-year-old attorney, author and electoral novice.

Well, as an heirloom celebrity, this blog supposes she’s inherited the right to refer to herself in the third person.

I’llThis blog’ll believe Kotaro Koizumi will be elected to the Lower House if Caroline Kennedy is appointed to the Senate. I think This blog thinks it's a bad idea for Governor Paterson though.


ADD: Incidentally, the TIME headline reads: Caroline Kennedy Takes Questions. No, TIME, she doesn’t.

Is This Michael Lind an Idiot or What? And Some Thoughts on Barack Obama and His Christian Beliefs

The most shocking thing about the alliance between the Southern states and America's friendly but earnest economic rivals to destroy America's most important industry is the fact that so few people find it shocking.

Statements like that give liberalism a bad name. Maybe the Democratic left has gone berserk, what with Barack Obama’s s choice of Rick Warren to replace Jeremiah Wright as his favorite pastor.

Speaking of which, did you know that Obama is personally opposed to same-sex marriage and is uncomfortable with the idea of abortion? As Christians come, he is relatively conservative. He is much closer to George Bush than you imagine. Or is it the other way around?

Another Clinton, Junior Senator from New York?

One nutty op-ed in the Washington Post, and CNN headlines a post with: Bill Clinton mentioned for wife's Senate seat. Not that it’s likely, and if it did, guess what happens the first time “Senator” Bill Clinton second-guesses the administration or—heaven forbid—decides to vote against it? We’re not talking about a Mary Matalin-James Carville rerun. In fact, it’ll make the Bill Clinton Foundation look like small change. The very existence of the CNN headline is proof of what a bad idea it is.

Actually, what I really wanted to blog about was a different headline on the CNN website that had caught my eye at the same time. But I read the Clinton article first, and when I went back, the headline was gone. I know I wasn’t imagining things because I can find the headline in the description for the link to the CNN main page when I google it. Unfortunately, whatever article there was has disappeared from the CNN website altogether. If you are wondering, I was going to write about bikini waxing. Honest. The headline? Why Santa's sack is skimpy this year.

So I’m settling for Bill Clinton, the best available headliner. It was his fault anyway.

ADD: Wait, it is available, on CNN TV. My bad. But I won't watch it, lest it ruin the spell.

Obama's Steady Ship

The following is an excerpt, somewhat edited, from an email I sent to a friend in Manhattan who strongly supported John McCain but has since warmed somewhat to the idea of an Obama administration as the president-elect has rolled out his team. I know I am inflicting this on mainly people who are interested in the Japanese scene, its politics in particular. Sorry about that; I’ll try to come back to that, to find out if I think I have anything meaningful to say.

The people Obama is naming to administrative oversight positions are to the best of my knowledge all even-keeled, steady figures. True, Clinton lurched from one pitch to another toward the end of her campaign, but she made the switches perfectly, like a polished actor. (So did Romney, in a reprogrammable robot sort of way. McCain on the other hand was visibly uncomfortable when he had to say things he didn't believe in.)

That—plus competence—appears to be what the no-drama Obama has been looking for. That is surely a big reason why Robert Gates is an odds-on favorite to stay on, at least for awhile, as Defense Secretary. Note that Obama made the notorious Rahm Emanuel Chief of Staff and the brilliant but gauche Larry Summers the National Economic Council chief instead of Treasury Secretary. These two don't have to run bureaucracies; they run (more politely, coordinate) the people who run them—on behalf of Obama. I also like the way Obama has been rolling out his team.

The thing about Obama is, when people compare him to JFK, they mention his intelligence and wit, youth, physical grace, attractive family, and breaking the political barrier (his race to Kennedy's Catholicism), but they don't talk about the aura of detachment and the pragmatic ruthlessness that the two have in common. But how else could he have severed his ties with his church after Rev. Wright had retired? Of course Kennedy took horrible chances—apparently it runs in the family—whereas Obama is cautious—until he makes up his mind—and methodical.

All in all, I think Obama's going to be as effective as anyone else can be, given the circumstances. But he's going to need some luck to be a two-term president, and a lot of luck to be remembered as a great one.

Note on “New US President and Next Leader in Japanese Politics”

It turned out the Glocom event went off the scenario from get-go NTTIAWWT, so I never got to make most of my points. If you can read Japanese, please take a look here, where I’ve posted my talking notes. If I manage to translate it, I’ll post it here.

History’s Obamas—How about Japan?

In Slate, David Berreby shows that American exceptionalism is not warranted where outsiders assuming power is concerned. He gives Benjamin Disraeli, Napoleon Bonaparte and other well-known examples to prove his point. To explain how this happens in Berreby’s own words:

For one thing, self-made, boundary-crossing leaders generally arise in times of upheaval, when it's clear familiar ways aren't working.

About their atypical and unprivileged status, boundary-breaking leaders have, like Obama, usually been open, not shy—a second trait they often share. They make a loud, clear show of the fact that they aren't hiding or trimming their origins.

When charges of subterfuge fail to stick to a minority candidate, it is often because the target has made them ridiculous by showing a strong, sincere strain of don't-rock-the-boat conservatism.

The lesson to be gleaned, then, from the hardly new success of "outsider'' leaders is that, in troubled times, people want leaderly reassurance. But it's not necessarily ethnic/religious/one-of-us reassurance. Rather, they want something new and brave to address their fears, without effacing what they love most about their country. In other words, they want society to be new and old, changed and restored, familiar and unfamiliar. Anyone can say the right things about those contradictory desires, but it's much more convincing to elect a person who by birth embodies them.

The obvious question for Japan, given its long term structural problems, economic, demographic and otherwise: What are the prospects for a Japanese Obama? What are the chances of an outsider becoming Prime Minister?

Of course if you go far enough back in Japanese history, literally everyone can claim foreign ancestry. In fact, when the current Emperor visited South Korea as Crown Prince, he spoke of his probable Korean origin—an allusion to the Horse Rider Theory, which states that horse-riding nomads from Korea conquered Japan around 300AD and established the unbroken imperial line—which generated much goodwill among Koreans. But that’s probably not what we are looking for here. Let’s narrow the search a little.

Currently, three naturalized Japanese citizens serve in the Diet. They are:

(MURATA) Renho (Taiwanese) http://www.renho.jp/
HAKU Shinkun (South Korean) http://haku-s.media-trust.com/index.html
Marutei TSURUNEN (Finn!) http://homepage2.nifty.com/yugatsuru/index.html

That’s three out of 739 (479 Lower House, 242 Upper House), not a high percentage, an indication less of discrimination than a more general reluctance to accept immigrants. There is no quick and easy way to figure out how many others have non-Japanese parents or grandparents.

Renho is probably the most promising of the three, although I’ve never heard her being talked up as an up-and-coming political leader. It may interest people who are looking for change, any change, though, that They all belong to the DPJ, which, of course, does not have to field so many heirloom candidates. Some years back, ARAI Shokei, a naturalized (North) Korean-Japanese, was a promising, up-and-coming LDP Diet member who had made the jump from the Ministry of Finance to politics, but committed suicide under suspicion of shady financial dealings.

How do other “outsiders” fare in politics? There has been one Ainu Diet member, SUGANO Shigeru, who also belonged to the DPJ for a couple of years before retirement. There have been a number of burakumin Diet members, usually standing from the opposition parties. But NONAKA Hiromu, who has long acknowledged his burakumin origins, was a powerful LDP kingmaker. Osaka's enormously popular (and right-wing) governor Toru Hashimoto has stated that he grew up in the Dowa regions, although he has not explicitly acknowledged burakumin ancestry. The DPJ fielded an openly lesbian candidate, Kanako Otsuji, in the 2007 Upper House election. In balance, the DPJ currently appears to be more progressive than the LDP where non-traditional candidates are concerned,.

More generally, the recent record suggests that we are quite receptive to non-traditional leaders. In soccer, six of the seven (eight if you count repeater Takeshi Okada twice) head coaches of the national team during the J-League era have been foreigners, and six out of eighteen and two out of fifteen in the J-League First and Second Divisions respectively. Gaijins have been making inroads in the more insular professional baseball as well, where four of the twelve managers in 2008 were non-Japanese. (The number dropped to two as two resigned for purely personal reasons.) In the business world, Carlos Ghosn became a national hero when he nursed the near-bankrupt auto manufacturer Nissan back to health.

Come to think of it, we the Japanese people have always been receptive to, even venerating, foreign teachers. That goes back to the beginning of our known history. It appears, though, that we have a harder time accepting outsiders as pure equals. If that is true, then it is food for thought, and I’m sure those culturalists will have a ready explanation. But I’m not a culturalist, so this is as good a place as any to end this post.

ADD (Nov. 21): My heartfelt thanks to James (see comments), who has kindly linked to this Newsweek article. The visit actually never materialized. I’ve managed to totally misremember the whole event, though the point remains the same. It was something I’d believed in so strongly that I hadn’t bothered to fact-check.

Note: the Emperor’s talk came in 2002. The following year, the South Korean soap opera Winter Sonata became a megahit on Japanese TV and Korean drama and Korean celebrities exploded on the Japanese entertainment scene.

Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?

Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? Of course not. What a silly headline. Far less than 2 million people watch The Daily Show every night; Rush Limbaugh is a little shy with his TV viewership, but he has a gigantic radio audience that exceeds that by a factor of ten, and you can bet that most of them believe every word that he utters. Just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it so.

He Lives! The Masque of the Bush Administration

President Bush.
Vice President Cheney.
Laura Bush.
Condoleezza Rice.
Donald Rumsfeld.

The Dick Cheney mask, and the Dick Cheney mask alone, is astonishingly realistic.

Just sayin’.

— courtesy of Princess Sparkle Pony

McCain Promises Them the Moon Because It Won’t Happen Anyway Strategy

Ross Douthat slams John McCain for his slew of mutually irreconcilable pledges. Mr. McCain, if he’s honest, will be thanking the gods for the “twisted” Congress, which won’t allow him to do the things he’s promised to do.

Which, of course, reminds me of the DPJ promises. My money says it can’t square their circle. I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong, since the coalition doesn’t look like a good bet either. And it’s too late to emigrate.

BTW it’s funny how “twisted” works differently; here and there, parliamentary and presidential. This calls for a taxonomy.

Gasoline Prices: Here and There

Here, I took up Paul Krugman’s argument against the temporary relief that Senators Evil and Pointless—his words, not mine, sort of—are pretending to push. MK must be reading this blog, because she kindly sent me this report from the Center from American Progress Action Fund that sums up the discussions going on over there. The consensus of US economists appears to be that a temporary tax cut will not be reflected in a lower gas price and the money will go to the oil companies. (Senator Clinton proposes an excess profits tax on the oil companies to sop it up, which is where “pointless” comes in.) Makes sense, I guess. But wouldn’t economists love to see something like that happen, just to see if their theory works?

Well, Japan just did that all of last month, and the fact of the matter is, thing haven’t quite turned out that way. On and around April 1, service stations engaged in a session of price cutting that only game theorists could love, and come May, they are reportedly going through somewhat similar gyrations, ultimately bringing gas prices up to pre-April levels plus cost adjustments for rising oil prices. What gives?

Two possible reasons: First, I think that Japanese gas supply is more elastic than America’s. Japanese demand is growing more slowly, so there’s likely more production capacity available to take advantage of lower costs. The US oil market is a crazy-quilt of state regulations that makes it difficult in the short-run to adjust supply to cross-state shifts in demand, except for interstate drivers as well as drivers living near state borders. The segmentation also makes it difficult to increase supply through imports. These elements add up to a US market where supply is highly and uniquely inelastic.

Second, a shift in the supply curve can cause also cause changes in gas prices. Japanese oil businesses may be more amenable to public pressure and moral suasion. They cannot forget how the public vilified them for raising prices during the 1973 Oil Crisis, and politicians and the government piled on. All cost changes should be of equal effect, at least in the short-run, but in Japan, some costs are more equal than others.

Here, actually, I’d like to segue into my take on the fall showdown by way of the latest Asahi telephone poll. Hope to do that later, but in the meantime, briefly:

The LDP-New Komeito coalition must come up with a credible fiscal reform package that covers expenditures. The DPJ should come up with a credible fiscal reform package that ties together all the promises that they’ve been making with regard to cutting tax cuts and increasing subsidies. My vote in the next House of Representatives general election goes to the one that does. My bet is on None of the Above. Please stay tuned.

Paul Krugman’s Take on Gasoline Tax Relief

Here, Paul Krugman agrees with every other economist on the planet and slams John McCain and Hillary Clinton for supporting a one-off, temporary suspension of the federal gas tax for the summer holidays. He doesn’t use the pander word, but he does call their plans evil (Mr. McCain) and pointless (Mrs. Clinton). Pretty strong words, no?

There are several obvious differences between the U.S. tax cut follies (another Krugman choice) and the one-month suspension in Japan. The following quote from Mr. Krugman’s op-ed happens to lay them out in bold relief:

I don’t regard this as a major issue. It’s a one-time thing, not a matter of principle, especially because everyone knows the gas-tax holiday isn’t actually going to happen.

A caveat here: The DPJ—as with the refueling operations—discovered this matter of principle well after it drew up its manifest. That gives its position something of a makeshift air. Still, it can still showcase itself as a party of substance if it can expose the Fukuda administration’s fiscal reform package as a whitewash of the status quo at the autumn showdown. If the recent behavior of the Fukuda administration and the ruling coalition is any indication, there's a good chance that the proposal will be vulnerable.

And I Thought David Brooks Was Writing about the Clintons

Seriously, given the title “The Great Forgetting” and the fact that I reached it through a link on the Real Clear Politics home page. Come to think of it, both Barack Obama and John McCain have also had embarassing memory lapses, though Mr. McCain’s continued confusion of the Islamic sects could be a function of age. Still, the Clintons must be setting a record of some kind.

Senator Clinton looked good in the Petreus-Crocker hearings, though. She looked... senatorial. Like, say, Sam Nunn. Most Democrats must be hoping that she'll resume working there full time now.

On a related note, Mr. Obama has been narrowing the superdelegates gap this week. The thirty-strong Obama endorsement never happened and Mrs. Clinton had been showing surprising staying strength (or the PLEOs, as they are known, kept finding reasons to stay on the fence) for several weeks, well after calls for her to shut down had surfaced. In hindsight, I think Bosnia was the last straw.

What Do the US Secretary of State and the Japanese Health Minister Have in Common?

A lot, it turns out.

Condoleezza Rice and Yōichi Masuzoe both work for unpopular bosses (George Bush and Yasuo Fukuda) whose job approval ratings are stuck around the 30% mark in public opinion polls. Each one has been at the center of what has arguably been the biggest public policy fiasco of the respective administration, i.e. the war in Iraq or the public pension accounting scandal. The US relationship with Russia has deteriorated significantly on the former Sovietologist’s watch as well, and Mr. Masuzoe mishandled a high-profile contaminated blood plasma case to boot.

Yet the US Secretary of State and the Japanese Minister of Health, Welfare and Labor both remain highly popular with the electorate, opinion polls giving them approval rates in the fifties*, sparking futile speculation about their chances for higher elective office.

I don’t understand how they do that. Do you think it could be bottled and sold? Would it be legal? Well, if you find something on EBay, you know where to reach me…

* Here (via Real Clear Politics), and here (scroll down, way down).