62016    We heard the policy speech delivered by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which was his third speech at the Diet.

62017    It was a speech at the milestone of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

62018    It was naturally expected a great deal of attention would be focuses on such a special speech, we have to wonder how much effort the prime minister had put into it.

62019    The speech consisted of 15,000 characters partly because mention of the earthquake measures was inserted at the beginning.

62020    It was a huge piece of work with the length being twice as much as that of the two previous speeches, and it took 45 minutes just to deliver.

62021    However, quantity does not reflect quality.

62022    To our regret, the contents were quite uninspiring.

62023    Although Prime Minister's speeches are customarily prepared by incorporating his intent into the drafts submitted by the various ministries and agencies, we got the impression that even the editing of drafts was not sufficiently done and they were patched together with conjunctions without much thought.

62024    In the era of coalition governments, the existence of bureaucrats taking advantage of political confusion becomes conspicuous and rampant, and it seems that the Prime Minister's speech inadvertently exposed that.

62025    While the speech touched upon the immediate political challenges without missing any, the critical order of priorities was undefined and the unusual length of the speech appears to prove such behaviors of bureaucrats.

62026    The Social Democratic Party is in disarray in connection with forming a new party, and the foundation of the government is shaken in a major way.

62027    The Prime Minister probably didn't have any room to spare for the speech.

62028    On July 18 of last year, the Prime Minister delivered his first speech after taking office and preached about the principle of "gentle politics," followed by his second speech on September 30 of the same year which was his attempt to substantiate it with specifics.

62029    While his enthusiasm came across in the two earlier speeches, we could not detect any of that elan in the Prime Minister's latest speech.

62030    In particular, comparing to the last speech that was delivered at the time when the Murayama administration was on the right track, a subtle difference in phrasing and reserved expressions was noticeable.