VOA慢速英语2012 THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: Clinton Wins 1992 Election

THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: Clinton Wins 1992 Election
 
STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
This week in our series, we begin the story of Bill Clinton, America's forty-second president. He led the United States for eight years, from January of nineteen ninety-three to January of two thousand one.
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Our story begins in nineteen ninety-one. In February of that year, American-led forces won Operation Desert Storm to end Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein considered Kuwait a province of Iraq. He had invaded the oil-rich country in August nineteen ninety. Coalition¹ air strikes began four months later, in January, against Iraqi targets. The ground war took place in February and lasted just four days.
The American-led victory in the Gulf² war added to the popularity of President George H.W. Bush.
Nineteen ninety-one was also the last year for the U.S.S.R., the Union of Soviet³ Socialist⁴ Republics. The collapse⁵ of the Soviet Union brought an end to more than forty years of Cold War tensions and fears of nuclear war.
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In the United States, attention was turning to the nineteen ninety-two presidential election. Many political observers believed President Bush would easily win a second term.
But the economy was not doing much to help his chances. The United States went through a serious recession that lasted eight months, from July nineteen ninety to March nineteen ninety-one. Unemployment rose to the highest level in years. At the same time, the federal government was deeply in debt after years of borrowing.
Bush was a Republican. Democrats⁷ saw his falling popularity as a good opportunity to retake the White House. They placed their hopes on William Jefferson Clinton. At the time, he was the young governor of the southern state of Arkansas. He was gaining national attention by talking about issues like education.
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Bill Clinton was born on August nineteenth, nineteen forty-six, in the small town of Hope, Arkansas. His name at birth was William Jefferson Blythe. His father, also named William Jefferson Blythe, was a traveling salesman. He died in a car accident three months before his son was born.
At the age of two, the boy was sent to live with his grandparents while his mother, Virginia Blythe, studied to become a nurse.
She married a man named Roger Clinton when her son was four. The family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. When he was fifteen, William Jefferson Blythe legally changed his name to William Jefferson Clinton.
His stepfather drank too much, and was sometimes abusive to him, his mother and his stepbrother, Roger junior. But Bill Clinton did well in school. He also developed a strong early interest in politics and ran for student offices in high school.
In nineteen sixty-three, while still in high school, Bill Clinton went to Washington as a delegate to a Boys Nation program for young leaders. There, he got to meet President John F. Kennedy.
Years later, Richard Stratton, who was president of Boys Nation in nineteen sixty-three, remembered that meeting.
RICHARD STRATTON: “It was a beautiful bright summer day. It was July twenty-fourth, nineteen sixty-three, and we were all assembled in the Rose Garden at the White House as a group, waiting for the president to come out. We all sat there, riveted⁸ in attention.”
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: “I want to welcome you to the White House, particularly because this belongs to all of you and because it’s so intimately connected with the best in American history.”
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: “I was about the third or fourth person in, and he [JFK] started here and I sort of muscled my way up and made sure I got to shake hands with the president. He was quite generous. He went down the line and shook hands with a pretty good number of us who were there that day.
“It had a very profound impact on me. I think that it’s something that I carried with me always. And I was very fortunate that someone took a picture of it and gave it to me, so I was always able to remember it.”
RICHARD STRATTON: “Right after that frame -- that famous frame of him shaking hands with JFK – there’s another picture from the same film, showing President Kennedy shaking hands with Jeff Keyes, another one of our boys in from Florida, and Bill Clinton looking down at his hand with this wonderful look, like I’ll never wash it again.”
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Bill Clinton went on to study at Georgetown University in Washington. He graduated in nineteen sixty-eight and won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford⁹ University in England. He spent two years there before entering Yale Law School in New Haven¹⁰, Connecticut.
There, he met another law student, Hillary Rodham. She was from just outside Chicago, and she shared his deep interest in politics and public service. They both graduated in nineteen seventy-three. Bill Clinton returned to Arkansas. Hillary Rodham went on to become a lawyer involved in the congressional investigation¹² of the Watergate scandal. That case led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in nineteen seventy-four.
That same year, Bill Clinton, a Democrat⁶, ran for Congress in Arkansas. He lost a close race to a popular Republican. A year later he and Hillary Rodham married. And a year after that, in nineteen seventy-six, Arkansas voters elected him attorney general, the state's top law enforcement officer.
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In nineteen seventy-eight, Bill Clinton ran for governor and easily won. He became, at the age of thirty-two, the state's youngest governor ever.
While Bill Clinton was governor, the federal government operated a detention¹³ center in Arkansas for Cuban refugees. The refugees rioted. That rioting hurt Bill Clinton politically when he ran for re-election. His opponent argued that he should have done more to get the government to hold the Cubans someplace else. Also, Clinton had supported unpopular new taxes.
In nineteen eighty Bill Clinton was defeated in his campaign for a second term as governor of Arkansas. But he regained¹⁴ the office in the next election two years later. That was before the term of office was increased from two years to four years. Clinton went on to serve as governor of Arkansas until nineteen ninety-two.
While he was governor, education in the state improved. More students finished high school, and more went on to college. The state increased requirements for teachers and also increased their pay. Governor Clinton also expanded early learning programs for children from poor families.
While governor, Bill Clinton also became active in Democratic Party leadership at the national level.
BILL CLINTON: “Make no mistake. This election is about change, change in our party, change in our leadership, change in our nation. And that is why today, I proudly announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America. [Cheering]"
In nineteen ninety-one, Bill Clinton announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination¹⁵ for president. His main opponents were Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown. Tsongas was a former senator from Massachusetts; Brown had been governor of California.
Paul Tsongas later withdrew, and Bill Clinton easily defeated Jerry Brown for the nomination.
(SOUND: Delegates cheering)
Democrats held their national nominating convention in New York City in July nineteen ninety-two.
BILL CLINTON: “And so, in the name of all those who do the work, pay the taxes, raise the kids, and play by the rules; in the name of the hard-working Americans who make up our forgotten middle class, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States.”
Bill Clinton chose Senator Al Gore¹⁶ of Tennessee as his running mate for vice¹¹ president.
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The Republicans nominated President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle for a second term.
Another candidate in the nineteen ninety-two presidential election was a Texas businessman named Ross Perot. He competed as an independent, a so-called third party candidate. His choice for vice president was James Stockdale, a former high-level Navy officer and pilot. He had been shot down and held as a prisoner of North Vietnam for seven years.
During the campaign, Ross Perot argued that neither of the major candidates was taking the national debt seriously enough. He also warned of the loss of American jobs.
ROSS PEROT: “To those of you in the audience who are business people, [it’s] pretty simple. If you’re paying twelve, thirteen dollars, fourteen dollars an hour for factory workers, and you can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for your labor¹⁷, have no health care -- that’s the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement¹⁸, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.”
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Bill Clinton criticized President Bush for not doing more about the economy and unemployment.
Bush pointed¹⁹ out that the Democrats controlled Congress, and he said the Democrats had defeated most of his proposals.
The president also talked about his foreign policy successes. And -- most famously -- he promised not to raise taxes.
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: “My opponent will not rule out raising taxes, but I will, and the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say ‘No.’ And they’ll push again, and I’ll say ‘Read my lips – no new taxes.’ [Cheering]"
But raise taxes he did, and many Americans remembered that on Election Day.
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Bill Clinton and Al Gore won the nineteen ninety-two election. They received about forty five-million votes, or six million more than President Bush and Vice President Quayle. Ross Perot and James Stockdale received close to twenty million -- or nineteen percent of the popular vote.
Bill Clinton became America’s forty-second president on January twentieth, nineteen ninety-three. At the age of forty-six, he was the third youngest person ever elected president.
At his inauguration²⁰, the new president said there was no longer a division between foreign and domestic issues.
BILL CLINTON: "The world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world’s arms race -- they affect us all. Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable. Communism’s collapse has called forth²¹ old animosities and new dangers. Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make.”
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But, even as he took office, critics were questioning his character. There had been accusations²² during the campaign about relationships with other women in Arkansas. And there were questions about an investment that he and Hillary Clinton had made in a land development project back in nineteen seventy-eight.
President Clinton's first term in office will be our story next week.
You can find our series online with transcripts²³, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voanews.cn. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember, inviting²⁴ you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC: "Don't Stop"/Fleetwood Mac)
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Contributing: Jerilyn Watson
This was program #228. For earlier programs, type "Making of a Nation" in quotation²⁵ marks in the search box at the top of the page.

1 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

2 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

3 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。

4 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

5 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

6 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

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 riveted   

铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意

参考例句：

• I was absolutely riveted by her story. 我完全被她的故事吸引住了。
• My attention was riveted by a slight movement in the bushes. 我的注意力被灌木丛中的轻微晃动吸引住了。

9 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

10 haven   

n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所

参考例句：

• It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后，这真是一个安乐窝。
• The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。

11 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。

12 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

13 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

14 regained   

复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地

参考例句：

• The majority of the people in the world have regained their liberty. 世界上大多数人已重获自由。
• She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise. 她犹豫片刻，但很快恢复了镇静。

15 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

16 gore   

n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶

参考例句：

• The fox lay dying in a pool of gore.狐狸倒在血泊中奄奄一息。
• Carruthers had been gored by a rhinoceros.卡拉瑟斯被犀牛顶伤了。

17 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

18 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

19 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

20 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

21 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

22 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

23 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

24 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

25 quotation   

n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情

参考例句：

• He finished his speech with a quotation from Shakespeare.他讲话结束时引用了莎士比亚的语录。
• The quotation is omitted here.此处引文从略。