Hatoyama's approval ratings are plummeting. People are beginning to suspect he's not fit for the job. And for good reason, every time he speaks out, he exudes lack of confidence and decisiveness. Over the past few months he and his party have been plagued with money scandals that surfaced one after another. Yesterday the Diet was convened for the first time this year and he was grilled on his money scandal, an accounting fraud having to do with huge donations from his mother, who came from one of Japan's most affluent families. He denied he knew anything about the fact that he got the money from his mother, but given the huge amount of money involved and the fact that the donations spanned more than five years, it's very unlikely that he didn't know anything about it. That's what most people would think. When he denied his direct involvement with the scandal yesterday, he started his statement with the cliché involving a grandiose-sounding four-Kanji-character word (4-moji jukugo), “I swear by the gods of heaven and earth (天地神明に誓って) that I'm innocent, blah-blah-blah (cited from the Japan Times).” This was exactly the expression beloved by members of the subway gas attack cult when they denied their allegations. Obviously Hatoyama did the worst mistake and made the situation worse. Everybody would think when someone uses such an expression, he's lying. People overexaggerate when they lie. 

  Personally I've never seen a political leader with such a dismal lack of confidence and determination, Japan or elsewhere, and it was disconcerting to hear the grandiose expression that reminds everyone of the nightmares long ago. Years back, his mother reportedly said in a magazine interview that she was determined to make his son another prime minister from the Hatoyama family, after his grandfather. In Japan, traditionally, prime ministers are not chosen because they are best fit for the job but because they are the most powerful money-wise. Now people realize what she meant.