Domestic politics is not my specialty, but I am so disturbed by recent developments that I am prompted to write down some of my thoughts. First, newspaper comments and articles suggest that the opposition parties and the media have succeeded in establishing a public image of Yoshiro Mori as an incompetent and loose-tongued prime minister.

Newspaper and magazine comments also made a fool of Mori's predecessor, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. As I recall, however, it was Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki who was most ridiculed. One commentator, when asked why Suzuki had stepped down, said; "People made a fool of him so much that he probably got sick and tired of the whole thing."

I myself had considerable reservations about some of the things Suzuki said and did while in office. For example, following a meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the prime minister denied the military aspect of the Japan-U.S. alliance. That denial exposed his ignorance about the essentials of international politics and diplomacy. And in 1982, immediately before a scheduled trip to China, he botched the textbook issue (involving descriptions of Japan's wartime activities) -- a blunder that has marred Japan's diplomacy toward China to this day.