Word: destroyer
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That faith is being placed in a decidedly unusual man. At one level, the Prime Minister's appeal is easy to fathom. "He wants to destroy the things people hate the most," says Heizo Takenaka, an economics professor who last spring joined the Cabinet. At the top of that list: the crusty political barons and their backroom deals, the endless paving of highways that go nowhere, schools that stress conformity over creativity. Yet in any time but the present, Koizumi would never have been trusted. He has a reputation as a lone wolf, a bit of an eccentric...
...that this one had a powerful emotional component. When writer-reporter Josh Tyrangiel interviewed Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski about influences on his life, he spoke tearfully about his mom, showing a rarely seen side of the indomitable Coach K. "I've watched his Duke teams physically and psychologically destroy my beloved Maryland Terrapins for years now," says Tyrangiel. "During the interview, I felt like I should be the one crying." Observes Beyer: "The thing that struck me as the most common element running through this group was a kind of fundamental humanity. Take our best humorist, David Sedaris...
...supporters. It was no coincidence that the first institution he attacked as a young politician was the post office, which sits on a huge treasure chest of Japanese personal savings and is linked with the kinds of officials his mentor so despised. "When Koizumi says 'reform' he means to destroy that faction," says Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a journalist who has known the Prime Minister for many years. "The fact that reforming might also be good for Japan is secondary...
...tear down that culture?and have powerful, entrenched forces fighting you every step of the way. The LDP conservatives, led by the formidable Ryutaro Hashiimoto, want no part of Koizumi's reform agenda and are determined to preserve the business-politics relationships the Prime Minister has sworn to destroy. They are waiting to pounce: at the first sign of vulnerability, they will surely come after Koizumi as they did with previous reform-minded Premiers. "They've been waiting years to dig up some scandal on Koizumi," says his longtime aide, Isao Iijima. "But there is no scandal. So they...
...That ruthless streak will come in handy as Koizumi pursues his ambition to destroy old Japan. His ideological role model is Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister, whom he escorted around the Diet when she visited Japan back in the 1980s. Her mantras are his: privatize, cut government spending and stop mollycoddling loser companies. It's the opposite of his predecessors' prescription for Japan's woes. They spent more than $1 trillion over the past decade trying to rev up the moribund economy; Koizumi has promised to end this profligate spending, starting with a 10% cut in next year...