Nothing I've read exemplifies the misdirection of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's campaign for the Aug. 19 Lower House elections better than a letter that appeared in last Tuesday's Asahi Shimbun from a reader who said he had to look up sekinin-ryoku after seeing it used in various LDP ads.

In English it literally means "responsibility-power," or "the ability to be responsible," a phrase that apparently doesn't make any more sense in Japanese since the reader couldn't find it in the dictionary. He assumed that what the ads were getting at was sekinin-kan, or "sense of responsibility," and though it's obvious that what the LDP wants to convey is that it takes its responsibilities seriously, it's easy to infer that it should also take responsibility for the very serious problems that Japan faces at the moment. The LDP has been the ruling party for 50 years. Who else are you going to blame?

Almost every local and national election since the end of the Koizumi administration has been seen as a referendum on the ruling coalition's performance. Voters indicated their lack of confidence during the last Upper House election by handing a majority to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, and then the LDP and its coalition partner, New Komeito, proved that they just didn't get it by railroading bills through the Lower House. In the meantime, two LDP prime ministers took responsibility for their own failures by resigning abruptly and unexpectedly. Last month, the DPJ came out on top in the Tokyo Assembly elections, thus prompting the dissolution of the Lower House.