Bush could learn from Japan's PM in being a gracious winner

Last November, Bush was hailing his electoral victory as a landslide when it was, in fact, the closest electoral race in US history, ever. The win could have gone either way with merely thousands of voters in key states voting the other way.

In Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi was facing his bills being turned down, so as their system goes, he called special elections of their Congress. His attitude was basically "either back me or reject me". Calling the special elections meant that if his party did not win a majority, he would lose the Prime Minister position.

Not only did they retain a majority, but it's being hailed as a landslide victory - his party winning 2/3 of their representatives by popular vote.

Did he gloat? No. His responses include:
"I thank the nation for its support and understanding,"
"I had hoped we would win a majority with our party alone, but we did even better than that,"

I realize Japanese culture is extremely respectful and formal. Koizumi is looked down upon by some for being more down-to-earth than many leaders. Still, I think there's something our President could learn from Koizumi about how not to be a sore winner.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4232988.stm

I just like how the d00d (Koizumi) seems to be the type of guy who would take one for the team and go down in flames, if it meant his group benefited at his personal expense.

Actually it's Koizumi who learned a good lesson from Bush. Just last week, he cancelled all of the campaign speech he was meant to give and stayed close to the disaster risk management office when a big typhoon was closing in on Japan.

I have no idea what you meant by "Koizumi is looked down upon by some for being more down-to-earth than many leaders" as there's no such fact but yes, Koizumi has a lot of flaws too, though I voted for his LDP this time around because there was no other choice that seemed half-way decent. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean.

Koizumi was up against old party LDP and the people basically said - no more politics as usual. It's time to give Koizumi the power to boot out the old FIC.

And truly, japan was ruled by the FIC.

But no longer. This is a revolutionary moment in Japan's history, but one that was a long time in coming.

Still, I don't see the FIC giving up that easily. Does anyone know how many of the rebel seats got re-ellected?

17 in total.

Blaze, you can troll about the FIC all you want but stop trying to pretend as if you know something about the politics in Japan. Your pointless analogy and overly dramatic analysis just made me spew coffee through my nostril and it hurts.

One thing I have always respected about the Japanese - they do less talking and more noticing - and learning.


Chalk it up to something I read on the BBC News. As I understood Koizumi is a lot less traditional than past leaders. Am I wrong about this?

Ah, I think now I know what you meant. Yes, he is less traditional in a lot of ways, but in good ways IMO. One of the ex-PM complained about Koizumi's lack of respect because Koizumi invited him to his residence and offered a can of beer to talk about issues instead of some fancy restaurant and pricey sake. But all the ex-PM got was a big sneer from the public opinion because nobody expects such kind of "traditional" politeness in the leader in crisis. I think it's more like senile whining than general contempt for his being down-to-earth.

I know its only a cultural thing, and therefore no basis for any criticism.......

But maybe you americans dont know how we Europeans cringe at the endless gloating, triumphalism, and rampant mutual and self-congratulation widespread in your culture.
At least, thats how it appears to us., from our cultural viewpoint.

If we meet the same thing in a European we form a very low opinion of them.

But the intelligent amongst us know that the Brits and the Yanks are "two peoples divided by a common language", and it is no more appropriate for us to apply such judgements to you, than to a Chinese. In the latter case it is more obviously ludicrous, and so less tempting.

We also realise that we must probably often seem to you to be dense, lacking in enthusiasm, drive and self-confidence, and self-effacing to the point of hypocrisy.

It's all viewpoint. The only danger is in either side not realising it, and so feeling superior.

At a guess, I should say that to the Japanese, Brits look a little bit like Americans look to Brits. And Americans see Brits the way Brits see the Japanese.

With regard to these displays of self-effacement/self-admiration etc.

It all adds so to life's richness, doesn't it ?

Note: The words used here, Brits etc, are meant to refer to cultural attitudes established in the respective countries. Nothing to do with racial origin or implication of racial characteristics..

Interesting that you should say this. I think that many Native Americans have a more low key means of expression as well and there are a lot of things that are openly discussed in American society that we would never discuss with a stranger and visa versa.

I was at a friends house having dinner with them and their parents when I first moved to California and they were discussing their family finances at the dinner table - with me present and I was positively shocked.

I'm not sure if that was a Native American thing or a Canadian thing though (I had lived in Kamloops up to that point). I just know that *never* in all the time I was growing up did my parents, or any of my friends parents, ever discuss finances in front of us or others.

If someone admired something that you'd acquired, you never volunteered how much it cost unless they asked directly (generally considered a very rude thing to ask) and then if it was expensive, you told them it cost less than you paid and if it was cheap you told them it cost more than you paid.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why, but that's how it worked.

If you got A's on your report card you quietly laid it down on the table. Your parents would be friendlier, your favorite foods would appear and discussions at the table would be about your future career options.

If you got a F you walked up to your parent and handed it to them directly (better to get it over with).

(I grew up in the days when they actually trusted you to give your parents the report card as opposed to mailing it to your house).

Really - I think that there are vast cultural differences within America. Also, perhaps American culture is made to look a certain way by because the media focus is on the dramatic and not the average?

I mis-read this as "gracias, weiner", and have no comments at this time.

Gee, these forums are getting steadily more calm, intelligent and mutually respecting. I posted all that. Everyone understood. No-one read it superficially and took offence. And no troll pretended to.

Things are looking up.

Be careful what you cast out.

If I had a flat economy and paid ungodly high taxes, I wouldn't be so much for gloating, triumphalism, etc etc.

Oooops ! Here we go !

Nope. Don't wanna play now.................