Inasmuch as newspapers routinely wrap up their year with top-10 news, sports and other stories, perhaps it would also be a good time to hark back on, say, roughly 10 memorable moments in blunder-speak, when political figures funded by the taxpayer blurt out nuggets guaranteed to show how not to earn their pay.
Take Hakuo Yanagisawa, who, in a January meeting as health and welfare minister looking into the problem of the falling birthrate, called women "baby-making machines." Gender equality, let alone respect, apparently never occurred to him. Women's groups and female lawmakers were quickly incensed. He later said he used too "uncivil" a metaphor.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also lashed out at him, but not to the point of dismissal. Rather, Abe waxed surreal, saying he would like, along with the public, to "reconfirm the magnificence of family and of housework." That surely helped.
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