America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don’t you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks, but does not say.

And, as always American thinks: Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and embarrassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would even admit privately that all this harassment is only the government’s way of showing that it is “fair,” of demonstrating that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.

That’s from Peggy Noonan’s new book Patriotic Grace, as quoted here.

This time, it’s being reported in this piece of syndicated commentary by William Lind.

You can almost hear [the House Democrats’] glee as they offer the anti-war voters who gave them their majority one of Washington`s oldest dodges, ‘requirements’ the Executive Branch can waive if it wants to.

The kabuki script currently goes like this. Congressional Democrats huff and puff about ending the war; the White House and Congressional Republicans accuse them of ‘not supporting the troops;’ and the Democrats pretend to be stopped cold, plaintively crying that ‘Well, we all agree we have to support the troops, don’t we?’

‘Supporting the troops’ is just another dodge. The only way to support the troops when a war is lost is to end the war and bring them home.

I guess “theater” doesn’t sound exotic enough to suit a Beltway hack.

One of the more fun fixtures in Japanese politics is Jesus Matayoshi, a fellow who’s kind of like a lovable combination of Lyndon LaRouche and that guy from Heaven’s Gate. As his name indicates, he claims to be God: he can occasionally be spotted cruising around Tokyo shrieking out of a speaker truck when he’s campaigning (unsuccessfully) for a seat in the Diet.

While trying to explain his phenomenon to my lady-friend, I stumbled upon this wonderful clip from YouTube, showing one of his official election speeches. (Unfortunately, it’s only in Japanese, with no subtitles.) It starts off slow, so if you’re in a hurry you should skip forward to the last minute or so, where he lets loose his money quotes: “Koizumi should cut his belly and die!” and “I, the One God Jesus Matayoshi, will cast Koizumi into the depths of Hell!” Gotta love the kabuki voice, too.

After seeing this, Barack Obama is just not that interesting…

Our latest Kabuki Alert come from Wonkette:

White House Kabuki: The Administration Reacts to the SCOTUS

The Bush Administration’s preliminary reactions to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld are in — and they’re not terribly exciting or surprising.

At a press conference earlier today with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, President Bush got peppered with questions about the decision. Pretty much every non-Asian journalist in the room asked about Hamdan. Bush said that “we take them [the Supreme Court] very seriously.” Glad to hear it; so do we. He also stated that “we will conform to the Supreme Court.” Nothing controversial there.

So the definition of “political kabuki” in this blog post seems to be “reacting to a Supreme Court decision while a Japanese politician is in the room.” We’ve seen it earlier defined as “a meaningless horse and pony show debate in Congress” and “putting off tough fiscal policy decisions to protect one’s legacy as Japan’s reformist PM.” Let’s nail it down people: Just what is “political kabuki”? And where did the term come from?