The painfully obvious and the International Herald Tribune

I often find the obtuseness of the "Newspaper supergroup" - the International Herald Tribune - to be so egregious as to result in the USA Today without pictures. Case in point:

Koizumi must decide how to use his mandate

How about privatized Japan Post Office? You know, the issue that he ran on, over which he purged a major faction of his party, that has become the end all and be all of his life?

What do those people at the newspaper think, that parliament will waive it magic want, enact a law and - boom - the enormous administrative implementation of the largest financial institution of the world will just be privatized?

The article points out that Koizumi has a whole year (!) left after he performs this miracle in which he will have plenty of time to ... And then the article goes and suggests various different ways that there can be pie ... pie in the sky. I am the pie in the sky ewwww ewww ewww ewww, I can change your mind. Sorry, I Alan Parsoned/Homer Simpsoned out for a second, I'm back.


Really what this article says is three things about the author:

1. Even though the most dynamic and important Japanese leader in decades has enacted huge change and promises to enact more, the authors really don't find him to be a credible leader ("all flash and no substance" they say. "fooey" they say)

2. Reforming the world's largest financial institution isn't an interesting issue to journalists because that institution contains the words "Post Office" in its name.

3. The authors have no appreciation for the difficulties that can crop up going from enactment of law to administration/enforcement/execution of law.