One of the greatest frustrations of studying the Japanese language is constantly being lectured by native speakers of the language, as well as fluent foreigners, on its inherent difficulty and grammatical vagueness.
While that difficulty may be exaggerated, it does apply to the use of the language for politics. For nonnative speakers, understanding the Delphic utterances of Japan's politicians is akin to undertaking the study of a language within a language. One of the top non-Japanese code-breakers of Japan's political lexicon is Doshisha University professor Ofer Feldman.
In 1993, his "Politics and the News Media in Japan" detailed how Japanese journalists cover politics, what words and phrases they use, and how to make sense of the news media's coverage of Nagata-cho. The book quickly became indispensable reading for those studying Japanese language, media and politics.