What a pity Aristophanes died c. 388 B.C: That classical Athenian comic playwright knew politics and politicians. They kindled his comic wrath. "O, thou that shavest close thy passionate arse!" he wrote of one politician. Of another: "Noisome was the stench that issued from the brute as it slid forth, with camel's rump and monstrous unwashed balls!"

Do they have news media in Hades, the Greek afterworld? Imagine him chuckling over the headlines of spring 2011. Dominique Strauss-Kahn. John "I've done wrong" Edwards. Anthony "I am deeply ashamed of my terrible actions" Weiner. Is this tragedy? Comedy? Politics as usual? Or what?

In Japan, meanwhile, there rises a stench of a different color. No sex, there's that to be thankful for, if little else. A failed no-confidence motion against the hapless prime minister, Naoto Kan, was the last straw for much of the Japanese press and public. Incompetence is bad enough, but the fiddling at Nagatacho while Japan melts down is beyond disgraceful: It's a threat to democracy. The weeklies chorused as one: "Nagatacho! Don't be utterly stupid!" (Shukan Asahi). "Get lost, all of you!" (Shukan Gendai, addressing opposition leader Sadikazu Tanigaki and two leading governing party politicians, Ichiro Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, who turned against Kan and supported the motion). "Farewell, 'Swindler,' 'Space Alien' and 'Sulky!' (Shukan Shincho, using long-standing or recently acquired nicknames for Kan, Hatoyama and Ozawa respectively).