People often supposed George Herbert Walker Bush out of the loop in many way

游客2023-12-28  8

问题     People often supposed George Herbert Walker Bush out of the loop in many ways: a boy born to privilege, product of Phillips Academy and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, who was (falsely) rumoured in the 1992 campaign never to have passed a quart of milk through a supermarket scanner. He was a Yankee aristocrat who could have followed his Daddy on to Wall Street but instead became a Texas oil man, and went on to represent the toniest bit of Houston in Congress. All this, as well as the tennis-playing summers in Kennebunkport, seemed to set him firmly apart from the average Joe.
    With the label "preppy" came the tag "wimp", which infuriated him far more. He had had a brave war, enlisting at 18 and completing one mission with his aircraft on fire. Later he did not hesitate to send 27,000 troops to dislodge Manuel Noriega from Panama. He was not above nasty attack ads in the 1988 campaign, excoriating Michael Dukakis for giving furlough to a black rapist. But Nixon, who hated Ivy Leaguers, seemed to think him soft; Reagan said he lacked spunk; and his talk of "Big Mo" and "kicking ass" on the campaign trail often ended in retreat. In 1990 a dust-up with Congress forced him to capitulate on his steely election pledge of "No new taxes". This, as well as the brief recession of 1990—1991, cost him the 1992 election, though even as voters went to the polls the figures for growth were ticking upwards, ushering in almost a decade of prosperity.
    What he lacked, as he more or less admitted, was "the vision thing". Ideologically, he was flexible: moderate sometimes, while at others he would traipse round pandering to conservatives, as George Will cruelly put it, with a thin tinny "arf", like a lap-dog. On domestic policy, as president, he inclined to the hard right, while also loosening immigration policy and expanding the rights of the disabled. His forte, and first love, was foreign policy. He had been ambassador to the UN for Nixon, an envoy to China for Gerald Ford and head of the CIA, besides, as vice-president, a follower-of-the-hearse at dozens of state funerals. Instinctively, he thought in terms of global power games; fortuitously, his time as president coincided with the end of the Cold War, a heady and fascinating moment, With Mikhail Gorbachev he struck up an easy working friendship, and in 1991, in the wake of the Gulf war, he even had a moment of comprehensive vision: a new world order, based not on force but on the rule of law, which America would strongly lead.
    Such grandiloquence, like eloquence, was rare in him. He was schooled in modesty, fond of the small behind-the-scenes gesture rather than the large public show. He belonged to a generation that had no patience for today’s blowhards who, putting self before nation, always push themselves forward. But when the times and events demanded he could, perhaps to his own surprise, find the right words and walk confidently ahead.

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答案     人们常常认为乔治.赫伯特.沃克.布什(George Herbert Walker Bush)与众不同,他出生在特权家庭,毕业于菲利普斯学院(Phillips Academy),随后入读耶鲁大学并成为美国大学优等生之荣誉学会(Phi Beta Kappa)的一员。在1992年的竞选活动中,有不实谣言称,他在超市购买牛奶还不用通过扫描仪。他是北方贵族,本可以追随父亲的脚步进入华尔街,后来却成了得克萨斯的石油大亨,随后成为休斯敦最时髦的国会议员。夏季他经常在肯纳邦克波特(Kennebunkport )打网球。这一切似乎让他与普通人截然不同。
    除了“私校毕业生”,老布什还被贴上“懦夫”的标签,这让他异常愤怒。老布什18岁参军,英勇奋战,在飞机着火的情况下顺利完成任务。后来,他毫不犹豫地派遣2.7万名士兵将巴拿马总统曼努埃尔.诺列加(Manuel Noriega)赶下台。在1988年的竞选活动中,他也利用恶意政治广告攻击对手,强烈抨击迈克尔.杜卡基斯(Michael Dukakis)允许一名黑人强奸犯短暂离开监狱的行为,但憎恨常春藤联盟的尼克松似乎认为他软弱无能。里根亦说他缺乏勇气。他在竞选活动中关于“势头正猛”和“大获全胜”的言论也常常以失败告终。1990年,老布什与国会的争执迫使他改变在竞选时做出的“绝不增税”承诺。这一切,以及1990到1991年出现的短暂经济衰退使得他在1992年的选举中失利。尽管选民们在投票时经济正在逐步增长并且持续了近10年的繁荣。
    正如他或多或少承认的那样。他缺乏的是远见。在意识形态上,他的政治立场并非一成不变。有时他是温和派,但正如乔治.威尔(George Wm)讽刺道,在其他时候,如果加上狗吠声,他就像一只哈巴狗一样不情愿地迎合保守派。在国内政策上,作为总统,他是态度强硬的右派分子,但他同时也放宽了移民政策,增加了残疾人的权利。他热衷并且擅长处理外交事宜。在尼克松执政期间,他担任驻联合国大使。之后,杰拉尔德.福特(Gerald Ford)任命他为驻中国大使。此外,他还担任过美国中央情报局 (CIA)局长和副总统,并在数十场国葬中跟随灵车。他本能地从全球权力博弈的角度思考问题。幸运的是,他担任总统的时候正是冷战末期,那是激动人心的时刻。他与米哈伊尔.戈尔巴乔夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)建立了友好的合作关系。1991年,在海湾战争结束后,他甚至规划了一个全面的愿景——建立美国居领导地位、以法治而非武力为基础的新世界秩序。
    老布什很少说出这种雄辩般的豪言壮语。他受过谦逊的教育,喜欢幕后工作,而不是在公共场合抛头露面。他对于那些自吹自擂,把个人利益摆在国家利益之前,且爱出风头的人没有耐心,但是,当时代需要他的时候,也许他自己也意想不到,他能够说出充满英雄气概的话语、选择正确的道路,并自信向前。

解析     1.第1段第一句out of the loop为固定搭配,意思是not part of this group“不属于这个群体”。结合本文语境,此处可译作“与众不同”。
    2.第1段第一句product of Phillips Academy and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale若译为“菲利普斯学院、耶鲁大学和美国大学优等生之荣誉学会的产物”则不符合中文表达,在翻译时应对product of进行解释说明,译为“毕业于菲利普斯学院,随后入读耶鲁大学并成为美国大学优等生之荣誉学会的一员”。
    3.第1段第三句Joe并非人名,而是指an ordinary working mail“普通工人”,故此处可译作“普通人”。
    4.第3段第四句first love意为The first or main thing one is passionate about. "一个人所热爱的第一件或主要的事”,故此处可译作“热衷”。
    5.第3段in the wake of为固定搭配,意思是confine after or following somebody/something“跟在某人/某事之后”,故此处可译作“在……结束后”。
    6.第4段第三句push forward为固定搭配,意思是to make other people think about and notice you or somebody else“让别人想起并注意到你或其他人”,故此处可译作“爱出风头”。
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