Amid the COVID-19 response, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had worked for 147 consecutive days, prompting Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso and Akira Amari to call for him to rest. Beginning with a Nihon Keizai Shimbun report on Abe’s health, this article sharply questions NHK—especially News Watch 9—and its long-running coverage of the Moritomo and Kake controversies alongside criticism of the Abe administration.

August 18, 2020
The following is an article published in today’s Nikkei under the headline, “Prime Minister urged to take every precaution in managing his health—same-day medical examination.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso pointed out on the 17th that the Prime Minister had worked for 147 consecutive days between January and June, saying, “Under ordinary circumstances, wouldn’t a person’s health suffer?”
He also revealed that he had told the Prime Minister that he should take time off for the sake of his health.
He was responding to questions from reporters at the Ministry of Finance.
Within the Liberal Democratic Party as well, there are voices expressing concern about the Prime Minister’s health.
On the 16th, Akira Amari said of the Prime Minister’s condition, “I would like him to take a little rest. He has such a strong sense of responsibility that he seems almost to feel that taking time off himself would be a sin.”
The Prime Minister is reportedly scheduled to take another day off on the 18th.
Because of the response to the novel coronavirus, the Prime Minister has continued working without interruption, and this summer he gave up his customary retreat at his villa in Narusawa Village, Yamanashi Prefecture.
Prime Minister Abe is the very embodiment of the “national treasure” as defined by Saicho, and indeed a national treasure of the highest order.
Against this supreme national treasure stand NHK employees, who not only receive some of the highest salaries in Japan but also take long vacations whenever they please.
News Watch 9 in particular joined the Asahi Shimbun and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in continuing to criticize—and attack—Prime Minister Abe over the Moritomo and Kake affairs.
They even engaged in what I regard as fabricated reporting, claiming that NHK had mobilized its full resources to obtain materials that had merely been brought in by Maekawa, a man who represented the very depths of vulgarity.
For reasons unknown to me, NHK conducts public-opinion surveys frequently.
Ever since the Moritomo and Kake affairs, NHK has continuously included, at the top among the reasons for “not supporting Prime Minister Abe,” the response that “his character cannot be trusted.”
Chairman Maeda, too, has demonstrated what a thoroughly contemptible person he is.
Every NHK employee, beginning with the chairman, not only regards themselves as decent citizens but is convinced that they are righteous people.
Nobunaga living in the present day would proclaim to them in a thunderous voice: there are no people more malicious than you.
You may arbitrarily believe that you are going to heaven, but nothing could be further from the truth.
You are no more than people whom King Enma in hell awaits with the severest punishments, as evildoers equal and comparable to the likes of Xi Jinping.
Because, in certain respects, you are even more malicious than Xi Jinping.