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More broadly, Abe's resignation spells the end of an attempt among more conservative members of the LDP to loosen the bounds of postwar pacifism and forge a true military alliance with the U.S. That change gathered momentum under Abe's popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who committed Japanese forces to assisting the U.S. in anti-terror operations - including in Iraq - and made noises about revising Japan's constitutional restrictions on military activity. (Japanese troops are allowed to act only in self-defense.) When he came to power, Abe made constitutional revision one of his top priorities, and kept...
...aging Japanese public was more worried about the state of its economy and failing pension system than the war on terror, which was never popular in Japan, and concerns grew that the country had become too close to the U.S. Abe never adjusted his priorities, and he paid the price at the polls. Though he said that the LDP would still fight to renew the Afghanistan bill, insiders have suggested the party may withdraw the bill in the face of opposition from the DPJ and the public. If that happens, Japan will likely return to the arm's-length relationship...
When President Joseph Estrada was deposed in a popular uprising, his followers staged months of counter-protests. Then he was put on trial and the underlying fear was that a heavy sentence for the former action-film star would provoke violent outcries. Today, however, though Estrada received a sentence of life imprisonment, his fans kept calm, taking some comfort, it seems, in the fact that the penalty doesn't mean life in a prison cell...
...have heard how the 2004 election came out. Bush, who lost the popular count by a half million votes in 2000, won by 3 million the next time around. He also took virtually every state Moore campaigned in. So the only suspense in the movie is how Moore will somehow claim victory. He does it, at the end, by noting that young people, his target audience, voted in record numbers, and that they were the only age group to go for Kerry. That's impressive, Pyrrhically, until you recall that Moore's stated purpose in making Fahrenheit 9/11...
...mayhem in the streets. Many, including those closest to Sharif, expected the authorities to arrest him upon arrival on recently reopened charges of money laundering and corruption - charges his party leaders call "trumped-up and patently false." Tossing him in jail upon his arrival would not have been a popular move, but it would have been legal. Few thought Musharraf would be willing to risk the unfettered return of a once-loathed leader who has come to represent a renewed call for democracy in Pakistan. But fewer still thought Musharraf would actually defy the Supreme Court order by not letting...