NEW YORK — "I was honestly dumfounded," Akira Ueda recently wrote, "when I learned that the gold medalist judoka Satoshi Ishii told the Emperor, 'I fought for you, Your Majesty.' " Ishii made that statement when Olympic medalists and others were invited to tea at the Imperial Palace by the Emperor and Empress.

"Athletes in the Olympic Games may fight for their own countries, but for the Emperor? Was Ishii daring or dumb or what?" wrote Akira, who until a dozen years ago worked for a Japanese restaurant in New York.

My friend's bemusement brought to mind Yukio Mishima, the writer who, before ripping his stomach open, shouted, "Long live the Emperor!" That in turn made me think, first, of the debate over Japan's imperial system that raged in the immediate postwar years, and then of George W. Bush and the U.S. presidency.