JAPAN:In politics there's a time to explain and a time to shut up, but Japan's embattled welfare minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa, doesn't seem to know the difference.
Already in hot water for calling women "baby-making machines", Mr Yanagisawa threw more coals on the fire this week with another controversial bon mot, saying "healthy" youngsters should have at least two children.
The 71-year-old minister has been staring at empty opposition seats since he sparked a boycott of the Diet (parliament) over a week ago with a stunningly insensitive speech about the low fertility rate of Japanese women.
"The number of women aged 15 to 50 is fixed," Mr Yanagisawa said late last month to a group of local supporters from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). "As we have a fixed number of birth-giving machines and devices, all we can ask of them is that each do their best."
The oddly mechanical expression and the political message - that women and not government policies are responsible for Japan's plummeting birth rate - infuriated opposition Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima.
"Yanagisawa's remarks were tantamount to telling women to give birth for the nation," said Ms Fukushima, one of the Diet's handful of powerful female politicians. "The LDP is to blame for this problem itself for not creating the environment where women want to have children."
Mr Yanagisawa's latest gaff about "healthy" couples has again embarrassed the government of prime minister Shinzo Abe, which was suffering from falling public support even before his welfare minister began using the language of the stud farm to refer to half of Japan's voters.
"Do you mean then that those who don't have two kids are unhealthy?" asked incredulous opposition minister Miho Takai.
The opposition has repeatedly suggested that Mr Yanagisawa may not be the best man to end Japan's baby drought, a trend which may see the population fall by a third in the next 50 years.
Some have said they expect little better from the LDP - a conservative business party overwhelmingly staffed by older men.
Mr Abe, who is himself childless, has apologised for his minister and called his comments "extremely inappropriate" but refused to sack him, despite the week-long boycott, which ended yesterday.
The absence of the communist, socialist and democratic parties ensured that a supplementary budget sailed through parliament this week - the first time the opposition has been absent during budget deliberations since 1966.
The brouhaha is unlikely to die away, though Mr Yanagisawa has made the standard political act of contrition in Japan - a deep bow, a heartfelt apology and even a few quiet tears on the Diet floor.
Ms Fukushima says her party will "keep on fighting" until he resigns and he is now constantly dogged by an engorged press pack - many of them women - who are trying to goad him into another faux pas.
One female reporter asked him this week if he had discussed the controversy with his wife. "Yes, she raised it at the dinner table," a shamefaced Mr Yanagisawa said. "She really scolded me. I'm still hurting from it."