2018-12-15

George H.W. Bush

乔治•布什

Doing his darnedest

尽心竭力

George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st president of the United States, died on November 30th, aged 94

第41任美国总统乔治·赫伯特·沃克·布什于11月30日逝世，享年94岁

Wherever he went, as America’s president or before it, George Herbert Walker Bush usually carried a felt-tipped pen and a supply of notecards. On these he wrote letters. Some were thank-yous; others a clumsy, but courteous, attempt to get his views across to other people; yet others just a “good to see you” kind of thing. When the time came to write his presidential memoirs, to salve some of that desperate hurt after Bill Clinton thrashed him in 1992, he published instead 600-plus pages of correspondence. They ranged from doting letters to newborn grandchildren to his worries, as a young seaman in 1943, that his girlfriend Barbara, “so darn attractive”, would drop him while he was away; from his attempt to explain the Watergate scandal to his four young sons, to his mortified account of throwing up in 1992 on the Japanese prime minister, “the damnedest experience”. He admitted that some of the letters were nutty. But they were also of the moment. As he said, “It’s all about heartbeat.”

乔治·赫伯特·沃克·布什(George Herbert Walker Bush)，无论是其总统在任期间还是从前，无论他走到哪里，都会随身携带一支毡尖笔和一些笔记卡片，他用它们来写信。有些是写感谢信；有些是用来向别人阐述自己的观点，用词虽拙朴，却彬彬有礼；还有些卡片上仅仅写着一些 “很高兴见到你”之类的话。1992年被比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)彻底击败后，为了缓解内心的绝望，本该是撰写总统回忆录的时候，他却发表了600多页的书信集。书信中流露出对新生孙辈们的溺爱，还有1943年当海员时，“那么迷人”女友芭芭拉，可能会在他远离之际抛弃他的担忧；信件中还记载了当年他如何试图向四个幼子解释水门事件，以及描述1992年他如何向日本首相吐了一身的尴尬-这些都是他认为的，那些“最不能忘怀的经历”。他承认其中有些不乏荒唐，但却贵在真实。诚如他所言，“这就是心跳。”

In one letter he happened to mention a childhood rebuke from his mother: “Now, George, don’t walk ahead.” He took her words to heart, staying, for most of his political career, loyally behind and modestly to one side. As chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1974, he stuck by Richard Nixon until it became more urgent to save the party; at which point, he publicly asked him to resign. He felt afterwards as though someone had died. In his eight years as Ronald Reagan’s vice-president, though they had sparred bitterly in the 1980 primaries over Reagan’s “voodoo economics” and his callow Hollywood sparkle, he never criticised or upstaged him. During the Iran-contra affair of the 1980s, though present at many salient meetings, he declared himself out of the loop(在决策圈外), and it was hard to prove otherwise.

有一封信里，他提到儿时来自母亲的训诫:“现在，乔治，不要再往前走了。”他把这句话牢记于心，在大部分的政治生涯中，他忠诚地站在后面、谦逊地立于一侧。1974年，担任共和党全国委员会主席时，忠于理查德·尼克松，直到拯救共和党的危急时刻来临时，不得不公开要求尼克松辞职。事后他感觉仿佛有人死去一样。担任罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)副总统的8年期间，尽管二人曾在1980年的初选中就里根的“巫术经济学”(voodoo economics)以及其流于表面的、炫目的好莱坞式做派产生过激烈争论，但（里根总统上任后）他却从未当众批评或抢过他的风头。20世纪80年代伊朗门事件其间，他出席了诸多重要会议，却宣称自己并不知情，并且还很难证明并非如此。

The vision thing

远见卓识

People often supposed him out of the loop in other ways, too: a boy born to privilege, called “Poppy” by his parents, a 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 (the only Texan, growled Speaker Jim Wright, who ate lobster with his chilli), 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, though he let it be known as president that his favourite food was pork rinds, and banned from the White House the broccoli his mother had made him eat.

人们常常认为在其他方面他也是一个圈外人: 1992年总统竞选期间，谣传他从未在超市买过一品托的牛奶，是一个生来就拥有特权的男孩,被父母昵称为“波佩”,菲利普斯学院和耶鲁斐陶斐学会的优等生。北方佬出身的贵族，他本来可以子承父业进入华尔街，却成了德克萨斯州的石油大亨(发言人吉姆·赖特(Jim Wright)吼道，他是唯一用龙虾配红辣椒的德克萨斯人)，在国会中代表休斯敦最富裕的阶层。尽管他让大家知道总统最喜欢的食物是猪皮，而且白宫被禁止出现妈妈曾经逼他吃的西兰花。但是上述这一切，连同在肯纳邦克港(Kennebunkport)打网球消暑的经历，似乎都让他与普通人迥然相异。

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, or to launch a ground war against Saddam Hussein in 1991—declaring victory and pulling out in 100 hours, which pushed his approval ratings to 89%. 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 1990-91, 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.

在“preppy（预科生）”的标签上再加上“wimp（软弱者）”使他怒上加怒。他曾经历过勇敢的战争，18岁便应征入伍，也曾在战斗机着火的情况下完成过任务。后来，他毫不犹豫地派遣了27000名士兵，将曼努埃尔·诺列加赶出巴拿马；在1991年，对萨达姆·侯赛因发动地面战争，宣布胜利，并在100小时内撤军，这将他的支持率推高到了（前所未有的高度）89%。在1988年的竞选活动中，他并不在意那些恶毒的攻击性广告，谴责迈克尔·杜卡基斯释放一个黑人强奸犯。但讨厌常春藤联盟的尼克松似乎认为他太软弱；里根说他缺乏勇气；他在竞选道路上谈论“大莫”（二战中密苏里号战列舰的昵称）和“（我们在伊拉克）踢屁股”往往无疾而终。1990年，国会的骚乱迫使他放弃了坚定的选举承诺“不征收新税”。这样，协同1990-91年短暂的经济衰退，让他失去了1992年的（连任）选举，尽管选民投票时，经济增长数据已经稳步提升，而此后更是美国近十年的繁荣。（小编话说：美国总统上任之机，真是有前人栽树后人乘凉；前任挖坑后任埋单啊！）

What he lacked, as he more or less admitted, was “the vision thing”. Ideologically, he was flexible: moderate sometimes (indeed, in one Texas race, left of the Democrat), 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 (prayer in schools, gun rights, anti-abortion), while also loosening immigration policy and expanding the rights of the disabled. Wearing his mild Episcopalian hat, he mentioned a thousand points of light, a kinder, gentler America, and a new breeze blowing away the leaves of an old tree. It was all as vague as it was all deeply hoped for.

他所缺乏的，正如他自己或多或少也承认的，是“远见这种东西”。他思维灵活，时常是温和的（事实上，是德克萨斯州的，左派民主党），而在其他时候他不太情愿地，如同乔治·维尔曾尖刻的形容他的那样，轻声细语奉承讨好保守派。作为总统，他的对内政策强硬（学校必须祈祷，持枪权力，反对堕胎），但却对移民政策宽松，扩大残疾人的权利。他头顶美国圣公会教之帽，无数次言及他的明论，希望有一个做派更斯文的美国。新风拂过旧树，树叶飞动。人们在内心里所深切的希冀的这一切，并为清晰地为人所共知。

His forte, and first love, was foreign policy. He had been ambassador to the un for Nixon, an envoy to China for Gerald Ford (he and Barbara riding round delightedly on bicycles) 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.

他所擅长的和最热衷的乃是外交政策。他曾是尼克松总统的驻联合国大使，也是杰拉尔德·福特（他曾和夫人芭芭一同愉悦地骑着自行车兜风）派往中国的大使，中央情报局长官局长。此外，作为副总统，他在许多国葬中跟随灵车。从全球权力博弈的角度思考问题似乎已经成他的本能。幸运的是，他的总统任期伊始恰逢冷战结束，真是令人兴奋而陶醉之际。他与米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫建立了轻松的工作友谊。1991年，海湾战争之后，那时他甚至有过一个整体构想：一种世界新秩序，不是以武力为基础，而是以法治为根基，而美国将是（这一新秩序）强有力的领导者。

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.

这种慷慨陈词，如同雄辩之术，于他而言，甚为稀罕。他受教一生谦逊沉稳，对幕后的小姿态互动情有独钟，而非大型公众表演。他是那样的一代，他们无意去搭理那些自吹自擂者，他们总是身先士卒，一往直前。然若时事必须之际，也许令他们自己都为之惊异，他们也会掷地有声，自信前行。

注：

水门事件（英语：Watergate scandal，又称水门丑闻），是1970年代发生在美国的一场政治丑闻。1972年民主党委员会位于华盛顿特区水门综合大厦发现被人侵入，然而时任总统尼克松及内阁试图掩盖事件真相。直至窃听阴谋被发现，尼克松仍然阻挠国会调查，最终导致宪政危机。

巫术经济学：高额的基础建设、国防军备、大额减税以及大幅度削减赤字。个人感觉就是能解决所有问题的经济学，听起来太过奇幻所以被称为巫术。很多人认为现在特朗普所实行的经济政策就是一种巫术经济学。