This opening excerpt from the March 2017 issue of Seiron magazine presents a dialogue between novelist Ichiriki Yamamoto and political critic Nishibe Susumu, exposing the hollowness of televised political debate and affirming that political responsibility depends on position, not emotional posturing.

The following is the opening of a special dialogue feature titled Writer Ichiriki Yamamoto × Critic Nishibe Susumu, published in the March issue of the monthly magazine Seiron.
2017-02-15 09:06:34.
The following is the opening of a special dialogue feature titled Writer Ichiriki Yamamoto × Critic Nishibe Susumu, published in the March issue of the monthly magazine Seiron.
Yamamoto.
You used to appear on “Asa Made Nama TV” on TV Asahi. How long were you on that program.
Nishibe.
About ten years, I think.
I used to go on the show after drinking.
Oshima Nagisa and Nozaka Akiyuki were sly in their own way, because they would start drinking toward the end of the program and then get genuinely angry, but I’m not the type who gets belligerent even when drinking.
But one time, Kang Sang-jung asked me a question, and I snapped back, “Why the hell do I have to answer you.”
I must have mistaken it for drinking in Shinjuku.
Yamamoto.
(Laughter).
Nishibe.
That was when I thought maybe it was my age, and I decided to quit.
Speaking of television, last year I saw you, Yamamoto, appearing on TV, and I thought you were a man of real nerve. When I mentioned that, the editors decided to set up this dialogue.
Lately, I hardly read books or even newspapers, and when that happens, it’s sad how one’s hand just reaches for the television switch.
I don’t remember the details of the program clearly, but it was questioning the fact that Defense Minister Inada Tomomi had once said Japan should consider nuclear armament, yet after becoming defense minister stated that she would uphold the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
Renho, the current leader of the Democratic Party, attacked her for inconsistency.
I didn’t see the whole program, but it was probably framed as whether it was acceptable for a minister to change positions so abruptly.
At that moment, a commentator named Ichiriki Yamamoto cut straight through it all by saying, “The defense minister is correct. It is only natural that what one says changes when one’s position changes.”
Omitted hereafter.