Word: scandalizer
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...There is a long history between the Tanaka family and Bungei Shunju, Bunshun's parent publishing company. In 1974 the monthly Bungei Shunju ran an expos? of a bribery scandal that ultimately toppled Kakuei Tanaka, Makiko's father and one of the most influential Prime Ministers in Japanese history. And just two years ago, Shukan Bunshun's special report on alleged fraud by the then Foreign Minister Makiko drove PM Junichiro Koizumi to remove her. (A court threw out charges stemming from the story, which accused Makiko of pocketing her secretary's salary...
...There might be one piece of good news in the latest episode for Bunshun. Vendors in Tokyo have reported that the issue quickly became the week's best seller, proving yet again that nothing sells like a scandal...
Every political period has its characteristic form of scandal. During the Reagan defense buildup of the mid-1980s, the scandal of the day was "waste, fraud and mismanagement" at the Pentagon, symbolized by the infamous $640 toilet seat. Amid the general embarrassment and excusemaking, only one defense hawk was bold enough to declare that waste and fraud were actually good things. "We need more" of them, wrote Edward Luttwak in Commentary. If you're going to build a stronger defense and build it fast, a bit of corruption is a necessary by-product...
Today's characteristic form of scandal is financial abuse and excess. So where is the Luttwak of today who will cut through all the demagoguery and the whining, the outraged criticism and the mealymouthed apologies, and say, Look, you want a vigorous entrepreneurial economy? A bit of excess is a necessary by-product. "We need more" financial abuse--it is a sign that capitalism is working...
...Scandal, or at least the persistent allegation of it, is as much a feature of election years as is the stump speech. And so far this season, the G.O.P. seems more besieged than its adversary. After a three-month investigation, Senate sergeant-at-arms William Pickle reported last week that at least two Republican staff members downloaded and circulated some 4,670 confidential files from the computers of Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee members from 2001 to 2003. They did so by exploiting a weakness in the computer security system. The aim: to gain an edge in the rancorous battle over...