Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Taro Aso is reported to have said that Japan should learn from how the Nazis managed to change Germany's Weimar Constitution "without being noticed."
The remarks aroused a furor as they suggested that he was a Nazi sympathizer and that he did not know or understand modern European history. He has retracted his remarks, but they are unlikely to be forgotten either in Japan or abroad.
Aso has made no secret of his right-wing nationalism. His continued membership of Abe's Cabinet is a serious liability for the prime minister and makes many observers doubt the integrity of the government's policies. If Prime Minister Shinzo Abe really intends to launch constitutional reform, Aso's remarks must surely have set back any such initiative.