Outspoken Prime Minister Taro Aso may have finally learned his lesson Friday about holding his tongue.
For weeks, Aso has made repeated gaffes and then had to retract them and apologize. It reached a point where even lawmakers from his own Liberal Democratic Party began to criticize his careless slips of the tongue.
But Friday, during his first much-awaited one-on-one open session with archrival Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, Aso chose his words carefully and spoke with sincerity.