Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara remained unrepentant Thursday about his remark that Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka "deserved" the bomb that was placed in his garage, saying the act reflects public anger toward the bureaucrat's stance on North Korea.
"I am not saying that a man should be killed, but I am saying there is a reason that he faced such an incident," Ishihara said outside Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo while stumping for Shizuka Kamei, one of the candidates in the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election.
Tanaka is the key government official for negotiations and policymaking on North Korea. His secretive approach and emphasis on dialogue with Pyongyang has often been criticized as being too soft.
Despite a barrage of criticism that his earlier remark condones acts of terrorism, Ishihara ramped up his attack on Tanaka.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030912a2.htmA little of that Bush magic spreading around the world