[Nyororin]

That may very well be true... But you don`t see everyone digging out remarks made by, say, Reagan as an example of how the people of the US feel today.

The comment was a poorly made comment, caused outrage in (and out of) Japan - that was made over 20 years ago. If people want to hunt for fodder, I`m sure you could dig up some pretty unpleasant comments made by some leader of every country in the past 20 to 30 years. Does that reflect the feelings of the current population? Likely not - particularly if it was something that caused outrage in the country the comment was made in.