Honest Abe

I don't much like the sound of Japan's new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. Change happens slowly on the islands, and the NYTimes profile makes him seem too young, too fast, and too power-hungry for the good of his country. The new worldwide breed of "big-government conservatives" worries me.

As Japan’s youngest prime minister since World War II, and the first to be born after the war, Mr. Abe’s ascension appears to mark a changing of the guard in a country that has kept a low-profile in international affairs since its defeat in 1945. After winning the vote in parliament, Mr. Abe (pronounced AH-bay) immediately began making changes aimed at strengthening the prime minister’s office, which in the past has been a weak center in a nation dominated by powerful bureaucrats and entrenched special interests... “The prime minister’s office should be built into a control center for the whole nation,” said Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the newly appointed chief Cabinet secretary. “The office will put forward policies based on strategic thinking.”

Yikes! That's what I'd expect to hear from a socialist bureaucracy. With a dominant-party democracy and elections held within the cloisters of Parliament, there's no way to know whether this new administration accurately represents the people of Japan. Overall, a worrisome development.