A couple of weeks ago, Koichi Kato, former secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, appeared at a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. Kato is receiving growing public attention as a potential contender for the post of prime minister to replace unpopular Yoshiro Mori.
The event was disappointing, contrary to my expectations that political journalists would ask some pointed questions to elicit interesting answers from Kato. He mostly engaged in lengthy discourse on his favorite subject of political culture.
Some journalists, including myself, met for a postmortem of the event. The gist of our discussion follows: