When Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara finally announced March 7 his intention to run for re-election, some people in the media speculated that it was the end of the colorful politician-novelist's aspirations for national office.

This speculation was based mainly on Ishihara's age. He's already 70, and the fact that he made up his mind to run for another four-year term as governor seemed to indicate he's not as serious about being prime minister as some have thought. However, in last Monday's Washington Post, Ishihara said that, while he has no plans right now to enter the national fray physically, he is already there spiritually. The Tokyo governor's office affords him a podium from which he can comment on "the issues that hold sway over the destiny of Japan," he said. "When Japanese politics gets in an impasse and confused, then in an instant I may come out" to run for national office.

It wasn't the first time Ishihara has used an overseas medium to clarify views that he usually dances around when talking to the Japanese press. He takes a perverse pleasure in shocking foreign interlocutors by owning up to charges of blinkered nationalism, xenophobia and warmongering, all of which he says makes him a "realist" rather than a rightwing loony. In a sense, he values the more matter-of-fact reporting style of the West, though he may not fully comprehend that his abrasive sensibility wouldn't survive that style if he had to confront it on a day-to-day basis. The Japanese media, which is uncommonly intimidated by celebrity, is easier for him to manipulate.