AEI’s Michael Auslin writes in the Asian Wall Street Journal about the shortcomings of the recently-elected leader who has been compared to a space-alien.
At a personal level, [his] inexperience and lack of governing skills proved fatal in the unforgiving political environment his Democratic Party helped create over the past decade.
[His] flip-flops on policy, his backing away from major campaign promises, his seeming detachment from the hard choices that have to be made by leaders, pointed to a politician who rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction and yet felt he was not bound by the same laws of political gravity.
[V]oters, who had long waited for change they could believe in, found their hopes dashed just months after finally taking the plunge…. That the party would pick someone so untested and with questionable leadership qualities, and just at the moment when it was poised to take power, seemed to show how immature it was as a political organization.Observers … moreover, grew increasingly concerned over the lack of strategic thinking in [his] cabinet.
Auslin’s op-ed was a response to the resignation of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and the failures of the Democratic Party of Japan.
Never mind.
