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  3. (1)Thirty-seven men have been elected President since 1789, and the American

(1)Thirty-seven men have been elected President since 1789, and the American

游客2024-11-21  20
问题     (1)Thirty-seven men have been elected President since 1789, and the American people have applied two different standards in evaluating their achievements. The first was formulated by Alexander Hamilton who test-drove the presidency in the Federalist papers. The difficulty of winning the job, he argued, virtually guaranteed it would be held by the best men. "Talents for low intrigue, and the little art of popularity", could "elevate a man to the first honors in a single state". But only "characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue" could impress the nation as a whole. The first seven Presidents, who filled the job for almost a half-century, confirmed Hamilton’s prediction. George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were heroes of the American Revolution. James Madison was the prime mover in the push to write and ratify the Constitution. James Monroe and John Quincy Adams had signal triumphs: Monroe successfully fought against the English troops during the war in 1814, and Adams, as Monroe’s Secretary of State, conceived the Monroe Doctrine, which waved Europe off the western hemisphere. Andrew Jackson, the frontier warrior, beat the Creek Indians in the old Southwest and the British in New Orleans.
    (2)It was not until the eighth President, Martin Van Buren, that America aimed lower. Van Buren was a smooth self-made man from upstate New York who clambered to leadership first in his state, then in the Democratic Party nationwide. He was a wire puller and wheeler-dealer. Former President John Quincy Adams praised his "calmness", "gentleness" and "discretion", though not his "profound dissimulation" and "fawning servility". Van Buren was a pol, first, last and always. He showed mat intrigue and the art of popularity were now enough to win the White House. Since 1841, most successful presidential candidates have passed the Van Buren test. The electorate wants leaders who have played the game, even if they haven’t been All-Stars. It’s a low but sensible hurdle; Obama qualifies by that standard.
    (3)Voters also don’t take kindly to non-politicians: two businessmen, Wendell Willkie and Ross Perot, made serious runs for the White House, although neither came close. Americans will elect a political neophyte only if he passes the Hamilton test of pre-eminent ability. Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower had never held elective office, but they won their wars. Some Presidents pass both tests: Theodore Roosevelt fought well in the Spanish-American War and in New York State politics. Among the prospective 2008 candidates, only one has shown pre-eminent ability: Rudy Giuliani, in solving the crime problem in the nation’s largest city and in bis response to 9/11.
    (4)But is pre-eminent ability a reliable predictor of success? It doesn’t guarantee victory at the polls. Henry Clay was master of legislative finesse who helped broker the Missouri Compromises of 1820-1821, a deal between slave states and free states that kept the two sides from each other’s throats for 30 years. Yet he failed to become President in three tries. Great achievements don’t guarantee great presidencies even when the pre-eminent man wins. The Eisenhower Administration, scorned by eggheads of the left and right while it was going on, has been revised upward by later scholars, and a similar process is lifting Grant’s presidency from the cellar to which an unholy alliance of neo-Confederates and genteel reformers had consigned it. But neither man will ever be considered as great in peace as he was in war.
    (5)There have also been ordinary-seeming politicians who became epoch-making Presidents. After the 1932 Democratic Convention picked New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, journalist H. L. Mencken described him as a man "whose competence was plainly in doubt." The Republican nomination of one-term Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln in 1860 brought this sneer from diarist George Templeton Strong: "He cut a great many rails, and worked on a flatboat in early youth; all which is somehow presumptive evidence of his statesmanship."
    (6)Statesmanship is an art, which means there is always room for inspiration, and for grace. We are right to look for a record of pre-eminent ability when we can find it. But the basic doctrine of republican government, that all men are created equal, can be a surprise bonus for some leaders, as well as a guarantee of rights for all of us. Sometimes greatness appears in unlikely places, even in ordinary pols from Illinois. [br] What does the word "finesse" in the fourth paragraph mean?
选项
答案 Delicate and impressive skill．
解析 本文谈论的是美国历来选举总统的标准，文中讲的几乎都是竞选总统的人物，无论他们最终是否当上总统，这些人在政治权谋上肯定都不弱，Henry Clay就是其中之一，促成密苏里协议需要的不仅仅是方法，而应该是策略、技巧。由此推测finesse表示“手腕、策略、技巧(delicate and impressive skill)”一类的意思，故答案为可表述为Delicate and impressive skill。当然，回答skin或者tact也是可以接受的。
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