評論
打印
（注：本閱讀材料根據高級口譯筆試試卷出題大綱選擇，適合09年3月參加筆試的考生備考閱讀。請精讀此類文章，并總結主題相關詞匯。詳細閱讀材料取材規則請見《09春季高口考生必備的外刊閱讀資料》。
The Age of Obama
The 'Decade of Greed,' etc., R.I.P.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
OCTOBER 29, 2008
安息吧，“貪婪的十年”
HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.著
2008.10月29
Nineteen eighty-two was a lucky time (as your columnist can attest) to be leaving college. Whatever faults various authorities find in the "decade of greed," which was followed by another decade of greed, it marked the start of 25 years of exceptional prosperity and opportunity. Freer trade and the epochal joining of a couple billion Chinese and others into the global division of labor played a role. The ideas of Reagan and Thatcher, bringing the private sector back to a place of honor, played a role.
1982年可是個離開大學的幸運時間（您的專欄作家可以證明這一點）。不論有關專家在這“貪婪的十年”里發現什么瑕疵，而且其后另一個貪婪的十年又接踵而來，它開啟了一個25年異常繁榮和充滿機會的時代。更加自由的貿易，幾十億中國人和其他國家的人劃時代地加入全球勞動大軍，發揮了作用。里根和撒切爾讓私有行業重歸榮耀的主張也發揮了作用。
Is the age of Obama the beginning of a less golden age? We cast no aspersion on the man or his program. Mr. Obama, in his short career, has not strongly associated himself with any policy idea. His relation to his own proposals during the campaign has been pleasantly noncommittal, if generally liberal (as voters and the media are only now getting around to noticing).
奧巴馬時代會是黃金成色開始褪色的時代嗎？我們無意誹謗這個人或他的計劃，然而奧巴馬先生在他短暫的職業生涯里，從未對任何政策主張表現過強烈支持的態度。在選戰期間他對自己的個人主張的表述給人的感覺一直是八面玲瓏、態度曖昧，如果大體上看是主張變革的（正如選民和媒體直到現在才開始注意到）。
His rise offers little insight either. His Senate primary and general election races were smoothed by the serendipitous bowing out of formidable opponents in each case, in divorce-related "scandals." His presidential hopes have been turned overnight into landslide hopes by a financial crisis that has left the public angry and confused, though not one that plays to any expertise of Mr. Obama's.
他的崛起也沒有多少玄機了。由于強大對手的意外放棄和離婚“丑聞”，他的參議院初選和大選角逐可以說是一片坦途。他的總統希望由于一場讓公眾感到憤怒和困惑的金融危機而有望一夜之間獲得壓倒性勝利，盡管這場危機沒有考驗過奧巴馬的任何才能。
Yet if he wins next week, it could be with a sweeping mandate to decide, er, what his mandate will be. He's a presidential vehicle perfectly designed, or self-designed, to be driven by history, rather than driving it. And he comes just at the moment when, overnight, crashing down is just about every normal restraint against intrusive, redistributing, regulating government.
然而如果他在下周的大選中獲勝，可能就會出臺一系列內容廣泛的政令，這樣就可以知道他的政令將是怎樣的了。他是個完美設計或自我設計的總統機器，由時勢所造，而不是去駕馭它。當突然爆發的經濟崩潰按慣例將要對政府實施干預、重新分配和監管政策形成遏制時，他就橫空出世了。
This is the door the remarkable Mr. Obama is about to waltz through.
這是神奇的奧巴馬先生正要跳著華爾茲順利通過的大門。
