奥巴马与佩林竟是"远房表亲"

    Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor（祖先）, John Smith, a 17th century pastor¹, according to genealogists（系谱专家）.
    Ancestry³.com found that the two politicians, who could face each other in the 2012 race for the White House, are both related to Mr Smith, a Protestant pastor who was an early settler in Massachusetts.
    The website, based in Provo, Utah, also discovered that Mr Obama was a 10th cousin（表亲） once removed from Rush Limbaugh, the conservative（保守的） talk radio host and one of the president's most virulent⁴ critics. Their common ancestor is Richmond Terrell, a Virginia settler who arrived in America in the mid-17th century.
    An Englishman called John Lathrop, exiled to the United States for becoming a minister（牧师） of an illegal independent church, was cited as the common link between Mrs Palin, Senator Harry⁵ Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, and Ann Coulter, a conservative author.
    "It is not unusual to find family members on different ends of the political spectrum," said Anastasia Tyler, an Ancestry.com genealogist². "This election season is an ideal time to look into the family trees of our candidates and their critics to learn more about the ties that make them all part of this great country."During the 2008 election campaign, it was revealed that Mr Obama was related to Dick Cheney, then the vice-president, through a distant Huguenot forbear. Their shared ancestry became a popular laugh line in Mr Obama's stump⁶ speech and a spokesman joked that Mr Cheney was "the black sheep of the family".（本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑）

1 pastor   

n.牧师，牧人

参考例句：

• He was the son of a poor pastor.他是一个穷牧师的儿子。
• We have no pastor at present:the church is run by five deacons.我们目前没有牧师：教会的事是由五位执事管理的。

2 genealogist   

系谱学者

参考例句：

• Misha Defonseca acknowledged her bestselling Holocaust story as a fake after a genealogist outed her. MishaDefonseca在当一位系谱学者揭露她之后承认自己关于二战犹太大屠杀的畅销书是捏造的。

3 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

4 virulent   

adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的

参考例句：

• She is very virulent about her former employer.她对她过去的老板恨之入骨。
• I stood up for her despite the virulent criticism.尽管她遭到恶毒的批评，我还是维护她。

5 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

6 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。