It's been a bad month for Japanese conservative politicians who can't seem to resist the temptation to rewrite history and make provocative gestures while shifting and minimizing war responsibility, said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan campus, in an opinion piece. “Japan's recalcitrant conservatives are playing with fire and surely Abe recalls that when he was hounded from office in 2007 the denouement began when he tried to revise history,” he said.