Naoto Kan's departure as Japan's prime minister looks to be as messy and wretched as his uncomfortable time in the job.
Don't weep for him and his querulous colleagues who are too self-centered and incompetent to understand the damage they are doing, but instead for the people of Japan who have stoically watched as the politicians have brought the country to a dangerous precipice.
The economy is plowing new depths because of the continuing fallout from the triple disasters of March plus nervousness about the global recovery, all added to the political shenanigans. Japan is already sitting on some deep economic and social structural fault lines because it is maturing and aging too quickly for its resources and finances. It would be a fascinating case study of the way that politics interacts with society and the economy either to boost development or to hold the economy to ransom. Normally third world dictatorships and banana republics are the most fruitful places to study these linkages, not developed democracies.