Was he or wasn't he? That is the question the media wrestled with last week when discussing former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa's behavior at the Valentine's Day news conference held during the Group of Seven meeting in Rome. By this point everyone seems convinced he was drunk, but the relationship between the mainstream media and the government, specifically the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is such that a signal must be dispensed from on high before editors will allow reporters to say publicly what they believe privately.

In this case, the dispensation came from former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, albeit inadvertently. Before his appearance Monday morning on the TBS show "Asa Zuba!" most of the major media had interpreted Nakagawa's slurred speech and cognitive confusion as the result of fatigue, something the public may accept if they've ever watched live broadcasts of Diet deliberations, which tend to look like nap time at the retirement home. Prior to Mori's appearance, the Japanese coverage of the news conference was peculiarly tentative, especially when compared with the reaction from the overseas media, which found Nakagawa's behavior shocking, even if no one said outright that he appeared to be in his cups.

The blogosphere wasn't nearly as reserved, but it took Mori's appearance on TBS to set the mainstream media loose. Confronted with video evidence of Nakagawa's incoherence, Mori appeared genuinely stunned. He assumed an avuncular tone and said he had warned Nakagawa in the past about his drinking.