这篇文章是TIME杂志上的评论。因为文章不长且用字较简易，符合我的程度，就试着 译了出来。有些地方是意译的，有错请指正。 http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1810056,00.html In Carter's Shadow 〈卡特的阴影〉 作者：拉姆希．波奴鲁（RAMESH PONNURU） 2008年5月28日（三） The ghost of Jimmy Carter is haunting the 2008 campaign. Well, let me restate that: the ghost of his presidency haunts the 2008 campaign. As for Carter, he certainly has not passed on; he is an active freelance diplomat and campaign consultant. In recent days he has told Hillary Clinton to "give it up" in June and estimated the size of Israel's nuclear stockpile. (Other previous Presidents have kept tactfully silent about its very existence.) Earlier, both John McCain and Barack Obama had felt compelled to denounce Carter's meeting with representatives of Hamas. Carter's almost predictable intrusions into the news have done little to sway events, but they have conjured memories of a past that the current President and his two would-be successors are trying not to repeat. 　　吉米．卡特的幽灵在2008年大选中游荡。好吧，再说一次：他的总统任期在2008年大 选中游荡，卡特本人当然还健在；他是位活跃的自由外交家与竞选顾问。最近他还告诉希 拉蕊．柯林顿该在六月「放弃」，并且估计以色列的核武存量（其他前总统通常连核武是 否存在的问题都会技巧地回避）。早先约翰．麦肯和巴拉克．欧巴马不得不谴责卡特与哈 玛斯代表的会面。卡特这些并不出人意料的搅局对情势影响不大，但它们却唤起了现任总 统与他两位可能的继任者都不愿重演的过去的记忆。 Start with President George W. Bush, whose deep unpopularity has set the tone for the campaign. In the late 1970s, the public came to regard Carter as a failed President, and his failure colored attitudes toward his party for more than a decade. Republicans tied Democrat after Democrat to the stagflation and foreign policy weakness of that era. Now Republicans worry that perceptions of Bush are going to hurt them for a generation. 　　首先是乔治．W．布希总统，他的不受欢迎决定了这次选举的调性。在1970年代晚期 ，公众认为卡特是失败的总统，而他的失败也歪曲了民主党的形象十多年之久。共和党人 把民主党和那个时期的经济停滞与外交软弱联系在一起。如今共和党人担心对布希的看法 会伤害他们一整代人。 Voters who came of age in the 1980s were strongly Republican, thinking Ronald Reagan had brought America back. By contrast, young people today identify themselves as strongly Democratic. They disapprove of Bush and the Iraq war in large percentages, worry about their economic futures and have started paying attention to politics at a time when Republicans have often been making the news for incompetence and scandal. 　　1980年代成长的选民是忠贞的共和党人，他们认为隆纳德．雷根复兴了美国。相对於 此，今天的年轻人自认为忠贞的民主党人。他们大部分反对布希和伊拉克战争，担心未来 生计，并且在一个共和党经常爆出无能、丑闻事件的时代开始注意政治。 Bush probably thought he had avoided going down as a failure when he won a second term, which had eluded Carter (and Bush's father). But the only sure way for him to escape that fate is for a Republican to win the presidency this year. Reagan would have seemed a less transformative figure if Michael Dukakis had succeeded him, and Bill Clinton would have had a deeper impact on his party and the country if Al Gore had won in 2000. Whatever their past differences, Bush has ample reason to root for McCain now. 　　布希连任成功时（这一关难倒了卡特和他父亲），可能以为自己成功避免了失败。但 他想摆脱此命运的唯一明确道路就是帮助共和党赢得今年的总统大选。如果麦可．杜卡吉 斯成为总统，雷根可能不会成为这麽有转变性的人物；如果阿尔．高尔2000年获胜，比尔 ．柯林顿将对他的党与国家有更大的影响力。不管他们过去有哪些歧异，布希现在有充裕 的理由力挺麦肯。 Of the two likely nominees this year, Obama is closest to Carter in background and policy leanings. The parallels between his campaign so far and the one Carter ran in 1976 are striking. Like Carter, Obama had little national experience when he started to run. Neither was given much chance of winning the nomination. Instead of running on a detailed platform, Carter told crowds that what Washington needed was "a government as good as its people"—just as Obama promises "change we can believe in." Carter's message sold well after Richard Nixon's disgrace, and press accounts from the time suggest that people found the born-again Carter to be charismatic. That parallel is a promising one for Obama. 　　在今年两位可能的候选人中，欧巴马的背景与政策倾向最像卡特。他至今的选战与 1976年卡特打的选战相似得惊人。就像卡特，欧巴马开始竞选时没有多少全国性资历。两 者原本都没有多少机会。卡特没有繁琐的政见，他对群众说：华盛顿需要「像它的人民一 样好的政府」──就像欧巴马许诺的「我们相信改变」。在尼克森的污名与媒体开始认为 人民发现重生的卡特的魅力之後，卡特的口号大受欢迎。对欧巴马而言这是个前途无量的 相似之处。 But his Carterish echoes come with two potential dangers. The first is that running as the embodiment of hope can lend itself to a certain self-righteousness—what critics have already started to call élitism. The second danger is that the public will come to see Obama as naive about America's enemies abroad, as it eventually concluded Carter was. Ever since Obama said he was willing to negotiate with those enemies directly and "without precondition," Republicans have been trying to tag him as the son of the Georgia governor. 　　然而他这种卡特式的重演有两个潜在危险。其一，以希望的化身的形象打选战可能陷 入自以为是──这已经开始被批判为菁英主义。其二是公众将认为欧巴马对美国的外敌过 於天真，就像卡特被认为的。自从欧巴马说他要和这些敌人直接交涉而且「不设前提」， 共和党便企图将他标签为那位乔治亚州州长之子。 And what about McCain? The Arizona Senator, who once joked about bombing Iran, may seem to be the opposite of Carter. But Republicans should consider what he has in common with the ex-President as well. Both men attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and their years in the Navy were, by their own accounts, deeply formative. There are more worrying parallels for McCain. When Carter won in 1976, Democrats thought they had gotten a new lease on life. Democrats ran the White House and Congress, and the congressional leadership was more liberal than ever before. But Carter's win was an anomaly in a nation that was at the time moving rightward. Carter had eked out a paper-thin victory only because of Watergate, stagflation and defeat in Vietnam. McCain might win a narrow victory this year by running away from his party, but conservatism is fading now as liberalism was fading in the '70s. Not even winning this year's presidential race will be enough to revive it—unless, as President, McCain refashions conservatism for a new era. Carter made his presidency the servant of a dying creed. Would McCain make the same mistake? 　　那麦肯呢？这位曾开玩笑说要轰炸伊朗的亚利桑那州参议员，似乎是卡特的相反。但 共和党人应该考虑他与那位前总统亦有相似之处。他们都念过美国海军学院，并且据他们 自称也都受到很大影响。还有更令人担忧的共同点：当1976年卡特获胜，民主党人以为他 们得到了新的终身租约。民主党控制白宫与国会，而且国会领导层比以往还自由派。但卡 特的胜选在全国开始右倾的时代实为一异数。卡特那薄如白纸的胜利只是因为水门事件、 经济停滞与越南的失败才勉强得到的。麦肯也许会靠着与自党保持距离而险胜，但保守主 义在当今的凋零就像1970年代自由主义的凋零那般，即使今年的总统大选胜选也不足以复 兴之──除非麦肯总统能翻新保守主义使之适应新时代。卡特使自己的总统任期成为一种 濒死信条的奴仆，麦肯会不会犯相同的错呢？ Obama and McCain will spend the fall fighting to be the 44th President. Both they and Bush will also fight to avoid any comparisons with the 39th. 　　欧巴马和麦肯将在秋天为出任第44任总统而斗争。他们和布希也将为避免有任何类似 於第39任总统之处而斗争。 --

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