OK, I know that's an odd way to put it, but I spent a lot of time years ago learning the most minor and trivial details about Japanese politics and nearly all of the leading and not so leading politicians in Japan's National Diet -- and that's how they'd refer to smart people attached to a Nakasone or Miyazawa or Takeshita. Some so-and-so was Prime Minister Takeshita's brain. . .

What is clear...