好英语网拜登，又一个失败的总统
This Sept. 11, a diminished president will preside over a diminished nation.
今年的9·11到来时，一个已经降格的国家，正在由一位降格的总统掌管着。
We are a country that could not keep a demagogue from the White House; could not stop an insurrectionist mob from storming the Capitol; could not win (or at least avoid losing) a war against a morally and technologically retrograde enemy; cannot conquer a disease for which there are safe and effective vaccines; and cannot bring itself to trust the government, the news media, the scientific establishment, the police or any other institution meant to operate for the common good.
我们这个国家无法阻止一名煽动者进入白宫；无法阻止暴徒袭击国会大厦；无法打赢（或至少避免被打败）一场与道德和技术上都落后的敌人的战争；无法战胜疾病，即使有安全有效的疫苗；并且无法相信政府、新闻媒体、科学机构、警察或任何其他旨在为公共利益运作的机构。
A civilization “is born stoic and dies epicurean,” wrote historian Will Durant about the Babylonians. Our civilization was born optimistic and enlightened, at least by the standards of the day. Now it feels as if it’s fading into paranoid senility.
历史学家威尔·杜兰特(Will Durant)在谈到巴比伦人时写道，一个文明“生于坚忍，死于享乐”。我们的文明生来是乐观和开明的，至少按照当时的标准是这样。现在感觉它好像正在逐渐衰老，变得疑神疑鬼。
Joe Biden was supposed to be the man of the hour: a calming presence exuding decency, moderation and trust. As a candidate, he sold himself as a transitional president, a fatherly figure in the mold of George H.W. Bush who would restore dignity and prudence to the Oval Office after the mendacity and chaos that came before. It’s why I voted for him, as did so many others who once tipped red.
乔·拜登(Joe Biden)本应是这个时刻的主角：从容出场，散发着正派、温和和值得信任的气质。作为候选人，他标榜自己是转型总统，一个像乔治·H·W·布什(George H.W. Bush)一样的父亲般的人物，在椭圆形办公室经历了先前的谎言和混乱之后，他将恢复其尊严和审慎。这就是我投票给他的原因，就像许多其他曾经倾向共和党的人一样。
Instead, Biden has become the emblem of the hour: headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept. He seems to be the last person in America to realize that, whatever the theoretical merits of the decision to withdraw our remaining troops from Afghanistan, the military and intelligence assumptions on which it was built were deeply flawed, the manner in which it was executed was a national humiliation and a moral betrayal, and the timing was catastrophic.
相反，拜登在这个时刻却成为了这样的象征：固执但摇摆不定，雄心勃勃但无能。无论是从阿富汗撤出剩余部队的决定有什么理论价值，该决定所依据的军事和情报假设存在严重缺陷，其执行方式是对国家的羞辱和道德上的背叛，其时机是灾难性的，拜登似乎是美国最后一个意识到这些的人。
We find ourselves commemorating the first great jihadist victory over America, in 2001, right after delivering the second great jihadist victory over America, in 2021. The 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center — water cascading into one void, and then trickling, out of sight, into another — has never felt more fitting.
我们感觉自己就像在纪念2001年圣战分子战胜美国的第一次重大胜利，而不久前，我们刚刚给了圣战者在2021年的第二次胜利。在世贸中心的9·11纪念广场，水向下流入一层空洞，水流逐渐变弱、消失，淌入另一层空洞，这样的意象从未让人感到如此贴切。
Now Biden proposes to follow this up with his $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which The Times’s Jonathan Weisman describes as “the most significant expansion of the nation’s safety net since the war on poverty in the 1960s.”
现在，拜登提议通过他的3.5万亿美元预算和解法案来跟进此事，《纽约时报》的乔纳森·韦斯曼(Jonathan Weisman)将其描述为“自1960年向贫困宣战以来，国家安全网最重要的一次扩张”。
When Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty, its associated legislation — from food stamps to Medicare — passed with bipartisan majorities in a lopsidedly Democratic Congress. Biden has similar ambitions without the same political means. This is not going to turn out well.
当林登·约翰逊(Lyndon Johnson)向贫困宣战时，其相关立法——从食品券到医疗保险——在向民主党倾斜的国会中以两党多数通过。拜登有类似的雄心，但没有相同的政治手段。这不会有好结果。
Last week, Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, published an essay in The Wall Street Journal in which he said, “I, for one, won’t support a $3.5 trillion bill, or anywhere near that level of additional spending, without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”
上周，来自西弗吉尼亚州的民主党人乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)在《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)上发表了一篇文章，他说：“国会选择忽视通胀和债务对现有政府项目的严重影响，如果国会对此不做更多澄清，我个人不会支持3.5万亿美元的法案，或者任何接近该水平的额外支出。”
Is the White House paying any more attention to Manchin’s message than it did to classified intelligence briefs over the summer warning of the prospect of a swift Taliban victory?
机密情报简报在夏季警告说塔利班可能迅速取胜。白宫对曼钦言论的关注，会多过对这一机密情报的关注吗？
Maybe Biden supposes that the legislation, if passed, will prove increasingly popular over time, like Obamacare. That’s the optimistic scenario. Alternatively, he could suffer a legislative calamity like Hillary Clinton’s health care reform in 1994, which would have ended Bill Clinton’s presidency save for his sharp swing to the center, including ending “welfare as we know it” two years later.
也许拜登认为该立法如果通过，随着时间的推移会越来越受欢迎，就像奥巴马医改一样。这是乐观的情况。或者，他可能会遭受像1994年希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的医疗改革那样的立法灾难，好在比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)急剧转向中间派，包括在两年后结束“我们所熟悉的那种福利”，否则这将终结他的总统任期。
Even the optimistic precedent was followed by a Democratic rout in 2010, when the party lost 63 House seats. If history repeats itself at the 2022 midterms, I doubt that even Joe Biden’s closest aides think he has the stamina to fight his way back in 2024. Has Kamala Harris shown the political talent to pick up the pieces?
即使民主党有这一乐观的先例，它在2010年仍遭遇了溃败，当时该党失去了63个众议院席位。如果历史在2022年中期选举重演，我怀疑即使是乔·拜登最亲密的助手都会觉得他的精力不足以撑到在2024年重回巅峰。卡玛拉·哈里斯(Kamala Harris)有没有显示出收拾残局的政治才能？
Perhaps what will save the Democrats is that Biden’s weakness will tempt Donald Trump to seek (and almost certainly gain) the Republican nomination. But then there’s the chance he’d win the election.
如果拜登的软弱诱使唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)寻求（并且几乎肯定会获得）共和党提名，这或许能拯救民主党。然而特朗普是有机会取胜的。
There’s a way back from this cliff’s edge. It begins with Biden finding a way to acknowledge publicly the gravity of his administration’s blunders. The most shameful aspect of the Afghanistan withdrawal was the incompetence of the State Department when it came to expediting visas for thousands of people eligible to come to the United States. Accountability could start with Antony Blinken’s resignation.
现在悬崖勒马还来得及。首先，拜登需要以某种方式来公开承认其政府犯错误的严重性。阿富汗撤军最可耻的一点是国务院没有能力为数千名有资格来美国的人加速签证办理。问责可以从安东尼·布林肯(Antony Blinken)的辞职开始。
The president might also seize the “strategic pause” Manchin has proposed and push House Democrats to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill without holding it hostage to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Infrastructure is far more popular with middle-of-the-road voters than the Great Society reprise that was never supposed to be a part of the Biden brand.
总统还可以听取曼钦的“战略性暂停”的提议，推动众议院民主党通过1万亿美元的两党基础设施法案，而不会将其作为3.5万亿美元法案的妥协选择。更受中间选民欢迎的是基础设施的建设，而不是伟大社会的崛起，后者从来不应该成为拜登形象的一部分。
My sense is that Biden will do neither. The last few months have told us something worrying about this president: He’s proud, inflexible, and thinks he’s much smarter than he really is. That’s bad news for the administration. It’s worse news for a country that desperately needs to avoid another failed presidency.
我的感觉是拜登两者都不会选。过去几个月让我们了解到这位总统令人担忧的一些事情：他骄傲、固执，高估自己的智力。对政府来说，这是个坏消息。对于一个迫切需要避免又一段失败的总统任期的国家来说，这是个更坏的消息。