Following the Nakagawa scandal, Prime Minister Taro Aso’s poll rating dipped below ten points, until a financial scandal involving the opposition DPJ saw it bounce back to 30-plus. The surge lasted until May, when it was revealed that Yoshitada Konoike, the 68-year-old deputy chief cabinet secretary, had been using his official rail travel pass to take a younger married woman to a hot spring via shinkansen for a romantic weekend. “It is in my DNA from my grandfather,” Konoike explained to his forgiving constituents. “My father was the same, drank heavily and ran after women. That DNA is in me, too.”

by Chip Boles