"If the Abe administration could not [revise the Constitution], who could? That is the sense of crisis and irritation I now feel," said Sanae Takaichi, chairwoman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Affairs Research Council at a Jan. 18 intra-party symposium on amending the Constitution.
Her irritation is shared by conservative hawks who are close allies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe because the move for revising the supreme law has not gained as much momentum as they had hoped.
Speaking for liberals who favor maintaining the Constitution as it is, a former Cabinet member of the Democratic Party of Japan government sarcastically said that Abe was the ultimate protector of the postwar Constitution, explaining that it wasn't that only Abe could revise the Constitution but rather that it could not be revised because of Abe.