【原文标题】How Obama Is Making the Same Mistakes as Bush
【中文标题】奥巴马怎么也犯了跟布什一样的错误
【登载媒体】 Time 时代周刊
【来源地址】http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1970413,00.html
【译 者】 囧囧人
【翻译方式】 人工
【声 明】 本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-228811-1-1.html
【译 文】
Who would have thought that one of Barack Obama's biggest missteps as president would be repeating some of the bad habits of George W. Bush? No single factor was more instrumental in Obama's 2008 victory than his pledge to completely reverse the nation's course once in the White House. Instead, over the past year, Obama has mimicked some of Bush's most egregious blunders, leading to much of the political predicament in which the present decider finds himself today.
谁会料到，作为总统的巴拉克•奥巴马，最大的失足竟然会是重蹈乔治•W•布什的覆辙？奥巴马在2008年竞选胜利最大的因素就是——他承诺一旦入主白宫就将完全改变这个国家的进程（感谢wendy兔童鞋滴翻译——译者注）。不过相反的，在过去的几年里，奥巴马却模仿布什的一些最严重的失策做法，结果导致如今竟发觉自身早已深陷困境。
This is not to say that Obama has maintained Bush's policies, although his administration's continuity on issues ranging from Afghanistan to Wall Street has alienated the left. And he certainly hasn't done himself any favors by failing to inspire the general public to rally around his agenda. But Obama's stumbles atop the high-wire of running the federal government have created perhaps the greatest danger to his presidency, and they are oddly reminiscent of the misguided practices which tripped up his predecessor. (See pictures of Obama's first year in the White House.)
尽管奥巴马政府从阿富汗到华尔街（的政策）都一直疏远了左派，但这并不是说，奥巴马就延续了布什的政策。当然他也并没有让自己丧失了激发大众团结在其大政方针的周围（不管了，这个双重否定句式让我直接抓狂，干脆套用咱中 央leaders最爱用滴词……汗——译者注）。不过，奥巴马“走钢丝”式地运转联邦政府所造成的马失前蹄，或许已经给他的总统之位带来了巨大威胁。人们会奇怪地联想起他的前任，正是这些政策举措使其一头栽倒。（图片请看奥巴马在白宫的第一年。）
Consider all the ways in which the current occupant of the Oval Office has-inadvertently or otherwise — repeated the errors of the recent past:
思考这位椭圆形办公室的现任占有者，在这段时间内有意无意间重复过的错误：
No chief economic spokesperson
无首席“经济发言人”
Quick: name all three of George W. Bush's treasury secretaries. Hard to do, isn't it? Like Bush, Obama has failed to install an economic commander-in-chief who can serve as the public face and the in-house honcho of the administration's financial team. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, National Economic Council chief Larry Summers, and Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer all bring strengths to their positions, but none is especially effective at conveying either a consistent message or a sufficient urgency, and none stands out symbolically or practically as America's economic czar. It is not practical for the President himself to serve as the daily go-to guy on any one issue, and, given the short-term and long-term consequences of the financial and unemployment crises, he desperately needs a distinct leader to handle this vital job. Bush needed a Robert Rubin figure, and so does Obama.
快：说出布什的所有三任财政部长的名字。很难，不是吗？如同布什，奥巴马也没能任命一位对外是服务公众的经济总司令、对内是政府经济团队一把手的人物。财政部长蒂姆•盖特纳，国家经济委员会主任劳伦•萨默斯以及经济顾问委员会主席克里斯蒂娜•罗默，都为各自的职位尽力了。但没有人能为扭转局势做出尤为有效的举措，不管是（局势）持续的消息还是足够紧急（这句选择句不太理解，望高手指点——译者注）；也没哪一个能成为美国经济无论是形式上还是实际上的统治者。让总统自己成为任何一个问题的“终结者” （go to guy：是NBA的特有名词，通常用来形容球员具备执行最后一投的能力，一般意指那些球队的绝对核心。在最后时刻投中压哨致胜球的球员，你可以称呼他们为“终结者”。——译者注）都是不切实际的。更何况，考虑到不管是短期还是长期的财政和失业危机，他都迫切需要一位与众不同的领导者来接手这项至关重要的工作。布什需要罗伯特•鲁宾这样一位人物，奥巴马同样如此。
Failure to integrate policy, politics, and communication
整合政策、政见和交流失败
By the end of Bush's two terms, even some of his supporters were disappointed (and, at times, horrified) by how much of the decision-making at the highest levels of the government were more the result of political machinations than rigorous substantive policy-making. From its earliest days, Obama's White House has failed to put in place the necessary procedures and personnel to move strong, serious ideas along the conveyor belt from the minds of wonky experts cloistered in the Old Executive Office Building chambers to the President's lips as he introduces new initiatives at dramatic public events.
在布什的两任任期快结束时，即使是他的支持者们也对其感到失望（有时甚至是恐惧）：这位政府最高决策者与其说是严格可持续的政策制定者，不如说是政策阴谋的结果。一开始，奥巴马政府就未能将必要的程序和人事摆在正确的位置上，以此来推动那些强而重要的想法，从“隐居”在老办公大楼房间里易动摇的专家脑海里传送到总统介绍重大公众事件新创举的嘴上（比较拗口的一段话，意思就是说：政府一开始就没有做好正确的人事安排，导致接下来的一些重要的决策意见都未能得到落实，成为空谈而已。——译者注）。
Tying the Administration’s fate too closely to his own party's congressional leadership
将政府命运与其所属政党的国会领导地位绑得过于紧密
Republican leaders in Congress effectively convinced Bush in almost every year of his presidency to marry his fate to theirs, and, all too frequently, to subordinate his own vision of right and wrong to their short-term political demands. This problem was particularly pronounced in the area of spending, from a mammoth farm bill, to an expensive new entitlement in the form of a Medicare prescription drug benefit, to colossal business-as-usual earmark spending. Bush also tarnished his personal image by staying largely silent in the face of ethics flaps involving Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and other scandal-plagued Republicans. (Obama should take note, as he continues to sidestep meaningful comment on the long-running travails of Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel.) When Bush ran for president, he, like Obama, suggested he would regularly cross his own party's congressional wing when he thought they were dead wrong. And Obama, like Bush, has lashed himself over and over to the political fortunes of the Capitol Hill portion of his party, allowing the agenda and vision of Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid, and a covey of mostly liberal committee chairs to define the public image of the Democratic Party and determine what his administration can accomplish.
几乎在每年的总统任期内，国会里的共和党领导人都能有效地说服布什将其命运与他们紧密结合，并频繁地将其观点，无论对错，皆服从于这些人的短期政治需求。这一问题在经费开销方面尤其显著：从巨额的农场议案到昂贵的以医疗处方药津贴形式的补助，到巨额的照常营业特征的开销（这个政策不知道应该如何翻——译者注）。此外，布什因在面对有道德问题的汤姆•狄雷、杰克•阿伯拉莫夫及其他丑闻缠身的共和党人的案件时保持沉默，而造成其自身形象大损。（奥巴马应该记住这个教训，当他继续回避对民主党议员查尔斯•兰格尔长期的苦干进行有意义的评价。）当布什在竞选总统时，他也像奥巴马一样建言说，当他认为他所在的政党确实犯错了，他是绝对不会挺他们的。而奥巴马，则如同布什一般，针对其政党位于国会山部分的政治命运对自己进行再三抨击，允许发言人派洛西、领导人瑞德和一群最自由开明的委员们以其自身的议程和设想来塑造民主党的公众形象，决定其政府能大刀阔斧的成果。
Failing to empower Cabinet members on domestic policy
授权内阁成员处理国内政策失败
Obama has put numerous talented people in his Cabinet, from a Nobel Prize winner, to several successful governors, but, like his predecessor, he has no system to get the most out of them. Cabinet members in the domestic policy cluster have less input, and less of a platform, in determining and selling administration policies than their counterparts at State and Defense. Finding the right balance — giving the domestic Cabinet enough influence, but not too much — is tough, but Obama, like Bush, has placed too little weight on the side of the secretaries. Potent and active education secretary Arne Duncan is an exception that illustrates what the President could be doing with the rest of the team.
奥巴马网罗了不少人才进入其内阁班子，从诺贝尔奖获得者到几位成功的管理者。但正如他的前任那样，他没有一个体系可以将这些人的才华最大程度地发挥出来。国内政策方面的内阁成员，相较他们在国家和国防部的同仁们而言，在决策和“出售”其行政政策时少有输入、缺少政纲。寻找到一个正确的平衡点是很难的——既要给国内方面的内阁足够的影响又不能过多，但跟布什一样，奥巴马在部长们一头所放置的砝码实在太轻。强有力、积极活跃的教育部长爱恩•邓肯则是一个例外，他说明了这位总统可以利用这个团队做些什么。
The good news for Obama is that every one of these errors is fixable, and there are signs that the President and his staff are working to address at least some of them, by, for instance, adding new policy heft to the chief of staff's office. The more cautionary note, however, is that Bush never solved these problems, which plagued him from his earliest months in the White House until the day he left. Candidate Obama's repudiation of Bush's eight-year presidency was focused on his predecessor's ideology. He should have taken stock of Bush's executive process as well.
对奥巴马来说的一个好消息就是，以上的这些错误都是可以修正的，并且已有迹象表明，这位总统及其团队正在解决至少一部分的问题，比如，为团队办公室的领导者增添新的政策分量。然而，需要引以为戒的是，从入主白宫的最初数月内就已麻烦缠身直至卸任，布什从未解决过这些问题。奥巴马对布什八年任期的否定聚焦在其前任的意识形态方面。他本也应该评估一下布什在执行过程（方面的工作情况）。
翻译交流 见沙发
business-as-usual earmark spending
我认为是“日常的专项拨款开支”
青蛙小王子 发表于 2010-3-11 16:23 
见板凳
And he certainly hasn't done himself any favors by failing to inspire the general public to rally around his agenda.
而由于未能鼓动公众对其议案表示支持，他自己也没能省心。
好像是这个意思吧，楼主再斟酌一下...
hantang 发表于 2010-3-11 17:03
见地板
not do sb/sth any favours大致是“使某人/某事（物）看起来更糟”，或者“对某人/某物（物）没有帮助”的意思。知道了这个短语，理解这句可能就不用那么“抓狂”了O(∩_∩)O~，个人觉得意思大概是：bbs.m4.cn5 u( o) C; R' B
当然他（由于）没能激发大众团结在其大政方针的周围而使自己形象变差了。bbs.m4.cn) c# V* `) w0 x7 m7 |% g& G
5 w! b6 R; L# H \
P.S. 这个翻译沿用了楼主所套用的词O(∩_∩)O~ 另外感觉5楼说的不错，楼主也可参照下
...but none is especially effective at conveying either a consistent message or a sufficient urgency, and none stands out symbolically or practically as America's economic czar.
2 S3
r3 B4 e. x5 ^/ G
但没有人能为扭转局势做出尤为有效的举措，不管是（局势）持续的消息还是足够紧急（这句选择句不太理解，望高手指点——译者注）；也没哪一个能成为美国经济无论是形式上还是实际上的统治者。
——————————————————————————
这句大概意思是：……但（其中）没有一个人能非常有效地传达出前后一致的信息或是切中要害的重点，也没有哪一个能成为美国经济象征性的或者实际上的突出统领人。
...
rhapsody 发表于 2010-3-11 21:54
见5#
[quote]“And he certainly hasn't done himself any favors by failing to inspire the general public to rally around his agenda.
M- Q: k$ s" T1 u
而他在鼓动民众支持他的议案上的失败，确实没有帮上自己什么忙。”
这样是不是好懂些？...
fangyuan86 发表于 2010-3-12 17:04 [/quote]
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狗仔卡
发表于 2010-3-11 14:59
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2010-3-11 17:03
现在上电脑了，可以发表情了。
好了我得抓紧时间做自己的事了，谁叫我自己弄了那么一大堆订单，到现在还压在那里呢。