I'm going to provide a few words of introduction for readers of The Asia-Pacific Journal on the subject of a piece I wrote for The New Republic's website, The Plank, as background to President Obama's visit to Japan.

The invitation came about through John Judis. I've known John now for close on twenty years; not only is he a good friend, but he has been my most trustworthy guide (personally and in his writings) through the labyrinth of American politics. John is one of those rare American writers who extends his gaze beyond that stretch of land that lies from sea to shining sea when he grapples with the deep currents in American politics. I first got to know him when I was doing the research for my first book, The Weight of the Yen. As a student of the rise of American conservatism and the corruption and decline of the old internationalist American foreign policy elite, John seemed taken with my thesis that it was financing from Japan that had made that re-alignment of American politics known as the Reagan Revolution possible.