The fuss surrounding the Diet resignation of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka has seen Japan and its media at their shallow, group-think, conservative, anti-individualist worst.
The media know, and some admit, that the issue forcing her resignation -- her departure from unrealistic Diet rules for paying secretary salaries -- is a nonissue currently being used by rightwing expose magazines to embarrass people they do not like (the rightwing disliked Tanaka for her pro-China, anti-Yasukuni and anti-U.S. missile defense views). But that does not stop everyone else from jumping on the scandal bandwagon.
With typical Japanese obsession for fussing over small details while ignoring the main picture, even the more objective commentators manage to harp endlessly on the fine details of the secretary salary issue, while overlooking her very important impact on the hitherto stodgy face of Japanese politics.