PBS高端访谈:2015年奥巴马会发表告别演讲么?

 　　GWEN IFILL: Now we're going to get a longer view of the president's challenge to Congress tonight.

　　Joining us are Beverly Gage¹, professor of history at Yale University, and NewsHour regular, presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

　　Michael, did it seem like a legacy² speech to you tonight, based on what you have seen other presidents do at this point in their presidencies³?

　　MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Yes, it sure did, Gwen.

　　And it may be particularly because of the way he returned to his political roots. We were talking, a few of you earlier, about the fact that he went back to what he was saying in 2004 about the fact that politics doesn't have to be so divided.

　　He also said tonight: Tonight, we turn the page.

　　That borrowed from his own announcement for the presidency⁴ in February of 2007, when he said, it's time to turn the page.

　　And that is what these presidents do when they're in the seventh year with a hostile opposition⁵ Congress. But domestic programs, most of this is going to be exhibition baseball. And that's very much in that tradition, because there is very little that's likely to get through Congress. It's sort of like what Everett Dirksen, the Republican senator, said about some of John Kennedy's domestic proposals in his State of the Union in 1961.

　　He said, Kennedy's speech will have impact on Congress of a snowflake — a snowflake on the bosom⁶ of the Potomac.

　　(LAUGHTER)

　　MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think some of these domestic suggestions the president made may have the same fate.

　　But the other thing is that presidents like Eisenhower and Reagan and Clinton and even George W. Bush found that, in their last two years, they could work with Democrats⁷ in Congress on some national security and foreign policy programs, for instance, Reagan and Eisenhower on the Soviet⁸ Union to improve things, Bill Clinton on the Middle East and Kosovo.

　　So we may see that Barack Obama can work with Congress on things like ISIL and Iran, and those things may lead to coalitions⁹ that may actually help him in doing domestic things.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Beverly Gage, what did you hear in terms of the president not only thinking about his final two years, but also trying to win over a Congress that, as we now know, majority Republican in the House and the Senate, trying to get them to work with him on something?

　　BEVERLY GAGE, Yale University: Well, I do think it was a legacy speech, in the sense that he was marking a moment. He was very deliberate about marking a moment, about marking the year, the point in his presidency.

　　And I also think it was the kind of speech that really allowed him to move out of the mode that he sort of had to be in, particularly on the economy. Up to this point, he's had to say, things could have been a lot worse, and that we could have sunk much deeper into a depression, the recession could have been much worse, my policies prevented terrible things from happening.

　　But that's not a very powerful position. So, I think he was really trying to mark this moment as the moment of turnaround, et cetera. And I actually thought he was pretty savvy¹⁰ about putting the Republicans in a position where he was making this grand call. You couldn't really sit there and disagree with him that, you know, everybody was supposed to sort of hang their head in say, yes, things have gotten really bad and, yes, we should all be better people.

　　What effect that will ultimately have, I think, is, as many people have said, much less clear. Some presidents who are faced with this situation late in their presidency have actually figured out ways, as Michael suggested, to work on certain particular issues.

　　But for the most part, the track record in this situation really isn't great for presidents.

　　GWEN IFILL: Michael and Beverly, I wonder — both sides talk about bipartisanship. But is it overrated? Is it something that's always been necessary to be articulated in order to get things done?

　　MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, I think it actually might happen in some surprising ways this time, because, from the Republican side, there's a motive¹¹.

　　And that is that Mitch McConnell and Speaker Boehner — they have both suggested this in some of their public statements — they know that if they spend the next two years, and the American people think that the Republican Congress has been too extreme, then voters in 2016 are going to be pretty unlikely to hand the keys to the car to the Republicans for both the White House and the legislative¹² branch.

　　In 1948, Truman was able to turn that against the Republicans and say, you know, elect me against that good-for-nothing 80th Congress, because, otherwise, the government will be out of control.

　　So I think, in ways that perhaps we never expected before, we may be surprised by the fact that, on certain very specific issues where there's mutual¹³ benefit, you might see the president working with Republicans.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, and, Beverly, there is pressure on the Republicans, too, to perform, to pull something together, isn't there?

　　BEVERLY GAGE: Right.

　　They don't actually want to go into the next election being the party of no, which is a label that has been placed upon them and that has actually really, I think, stuck in certain ways. I think some of the challenge for Obama that, say, a president like Truman didn't actually face is that the parties themselves are much more ideologically¹⁵ divided from each other than they would have been, say, in mid-century, when Truman was dealing¹⁶ with a Republican Congress, or vice¹⁷ versa, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was dealing with a Democratic Congress.

　　Certainly, within the Democratic Party then, you had a much more conservative wing that was a Southern wing. You had a much more liberal wing. And the Republicans also had a much more moderate wing that might form other coalitions.

　　And now the ideological¹⁴ divide between the parties is so serious that it's hard to see these coalitions building, outside of moments of crisis or perhaps kind of foreign policy intervention¹⁸.

　　GWEN IFILL: Beverly Gage, Michael Beschloss, our great historians on call for us tonight, thank very much.

　　MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Thanks, Gwen.

　　BEVERLY GAGE: Thanks.

1 gage   

n.标准尺寸，规格；量规，量表 [=gauge]

参考例句：

• Can you gage what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gage one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

2 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

3 presidencies   

n.总统的职位( presidency的名词复数 )；总统的任期

参考例句：

• The Dalai Lama previously visited the island during the presidencies of Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui. 曾经获得诺贝尔和平奖的达赖喇嘛，此前曾在李登辉和陈水扁主政期间访问台湾。 来自互联网

4 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

5 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

6 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

7 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

9 coalitions   

结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. 历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• All the coalitions in history have disintegrated sooner or later. 历史上任何联盟迟早都垮台了。

10 savvy   

v.知道，了解；n.理解能力，机智，悟性；adj.有见识的，懂实际知识的，通情达理的

参考例句：

• She was a pretty savvy woman.她是个见过世面的漂亮女人。
• Where's your savvy?你的常识到哪里去了？

11 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

12 legislative   

n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的

参考例句：

• Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
• Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。

13 mutual   

adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的

参考例句：

• We must pull together for mutual interest.我们必须为相互的利益而通力合作。
• Mutual interests tied us together.相互的利害关系把我们联系在一起。

14 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

15 ideologically   

adv. 意识形态上地，思想上地

参考例句：

• Ideologically, they have many differences. 在思想意识上，他们之间有许多不同之处。
• He has slipped back ideologically. 他思想退步了。

16 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

17 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

18 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。