• Daniel Sneider, Washington Post: A democratic revolution for Japan. "This is more than a simple shift in power. It ushers in a competitive, two-party democracy in which politicians and their constituents may finally have more say in shaping Japanese policy than bureaucrats and businessmen."
• Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal: "The Obama administration seems almost wholly unaware of this anticapitalist, anti-U.S. turn of events in its cornerstone ally in North Asia. This is a mistake."
• Jeff Kingston, Foreign Policy: Japan's new government faces a steep learning curve. "Having pledged not to raise taxes for four years, while promising various tax cuts, subsidies and hand-outs, the DPJ will be adding to Japan's record high public debt-to-GDP ratio, already closing in on 200 percent, by far the highest among advanced industrialized nations."

• James Carroll, Boston Globe: Kennedy kept the dream alive through our nation's worst nightmares. "He mattered so much to us because all these years, through his own public service, he has given us a way to live with the wholly unfinished catastrophe of November 1963, and its aftershock of June 1968."
• E.J. Dionne, Washington Post: To win on health care, look to Ted Kennedy. "Having held back, the administration now needs to lay out clear and understandable goals, so it can bargain from a position of strength. Dare one say it? That was Ted Kennedy's way."

• Joseph Finder, New York Times: The Holder investigation is a grave mistake. "For a new administration to repudiate a consequential legal decision in an individual case made by the previous administration serves to delegitimize our government itself, which is, after, all premised upon institutional continuity."

• Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband, Wall Street Journal: Keeping the doctor-patient relationship sacred. "The bill does not set limits on what "best practices" federal officials can implement. If it becomes law, bureaucrats could well write regulations mandating treatment measures that violate patient autonomy."

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