Regarding Gregory Clark's Oct. 8 article, "Getting Japan's politics wrong": Clark makes some good points and he may well be right that the press consistently misrepresents the true character of Japanese prime ministers. But he is more than a little unfair to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Since the Japanese economy peaked some months before took office (April 2001), he and his adviser Heizo Takenaka cannot be blamed for the last Japanese recession and for the policy of restructuring bad bank loans. They were, in fact, initiated by former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.
Clark is, however, right to argue that the press was far too ready to swallow the mantra of "structural reform" while asking very few questions about what it actually consisted of.
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