高处不胜寒:奥巴马的孤独之旅

There is a moment in every White House tenure when you can practically see the President walk away from everyone he's known, everyone he's been, because he now has thoughts and fears and hopes that no one else can fathom. Franklin Roosevelt faced a collapsing economy. Harry Truman had to decide whether to drop the atom bomb. John F. Kennedy found himself invading Cuba. I wonder when Obama's moment came, as he splashed into office through a sea of red ink, ended his first year with a national-security nightmare and in between set out to pass a health care reform bill that a majority of the public now doesn't want.
几乎每个美国总统都经历过这样的时刻：避开熟识的人，避开身边的人，因为此时此刻没人能设想他心中的思虑、担忧和希望。罗斯福曾面对摇摇欲坠的经济；杜鲁门需要决定是否投放原子弹；肯尼迪在职期间对古巴宣战。我不禁好奇，于经济危机时期入主白宫的奥巴马何时迎来这种孤军奋战的时刻。在这一年中，他无力解决隐患不断的国家安全问题，眼下还在想尽办法推行大部分人反对的医疗改革方案。

Presidents seldom get the presidency they hoped for. They don't manage their inbox; it manages them, and they have to adjust to the paradox of power: as soon as they get it, they discover they rarely get to decide how to use it. Lonely and frustrated is what being President means, and when Obama summons his predecessors' ghosts late at night, they can tell him how it went.
总统其实很少能做自己想做的事。他们无法掌控眼前的一切，而是被掌控。他们不得不想办法适应权利的自相矛盾性：得到权力后，却不懂得如何运用权利。身为总统就意味着孤独和沮丧。当奥巴马在夜间召唤各位前任时，他的前辈们会告诉他为什么会这样。

Kennedy talked about "the poison of the presidency," the way proximity to power could warp the judgment of even the wisest allies. It's one reason Kennedy's father wanted him to make his brother Attorney General and why First Ladies wield power that can never be adequately measured by the list of causes they support.
肯尼迪曾说过“总统宝座是一种毒药”，太接近权利中心，最睿智的人也不免丧失判断能力。这也是肯尼迪的父亲要他任命自己的哥哥为司法部长的一个原因所在。同样，正因如此，第一夫人们也任意行使权利，为此提出种种不令人信服的理由。

A year ago at his Inauguration, Obama affirmed that "we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, trecriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." Maybe it's the memory of those huge, happy crowds that makes the contrast between then and now so irresistible. OBAMA WALKS A LONG AND LONELY ROAD, observed a recent headline in the Financial Times, and that image is everywhere — a once untouchably popular figure unable to connect as President the way he did as a candidate or shine the light of hope and change on the dingy business of governing. As his approval rating fell almost 20 points, to below 50%, the freshman report cards talked about irate independents and mutinous liberals and how even Michelle can't radiate enough warmth to compensate for his apparent lack of a pulse.
一年前，奥巴马在就职典礼上宣称：“我们今天就将结束狭隘的抱怨和虚伪的保证，结束一直以来限制政策实施的互相指责和古板教条。”也许关于那时欢呼的人群的记忆使得今时往日的对比更为明显。金融时报最近一期的标题是：长路漫漫、独自前行的奥巴马，他的这种形象也已经广为人知——曾经不可企及、备受推崇的那个人现在无法将身为候选人时的言行延续到总统身份当中，亦无法在其行政中点亮希望和变革之光。现在他的支持率下跌了20个百分点，一路滑到50%一下，这位刚当选一年的总统交了份很不理想的成绩单，满是独立派人的愤怒和自由党人的反抗，米歇尔也无法以洋溢的个人魅力弥补奥巴马的无精打采。

"Make no mistake" is one of Obama's verbal twitches, and it's as much a prayer as a preface. He can't afford mistakes when the stakes are this high: the economy still wobbly, his agenda embattled and America's enemies snarling loudly. It would be nice for Presidents to have magical powers, and Obama convinced many people that he had them, not least by managing to get himself elected in the first place. But his rhetorical gifts can now work against him, when he raises expectations only to see them crash into realities for which he's now held accountable. Make no mistake, indeed; lonely does not begin to describe where he lives now.
“别出错”是奥巴马挂在口头上的话之一，这话更像是祈祷，而不是做什么事之前的嘱咐。他支付不了出错的代价，因为赌注太高了：经济仍然不稳定，他的日程已经排得密密麻麻，而美国的敌人正张狂挑衅。总统如果有魔力就最好不过，而奥巴马曾让那么多人相信他是具有神奇力量的，不仅仅因为他成功当选。但现在他的雄辩可能带来坏处，尤其是他激起了人们的期望而又不能化为现实的时候，他自己难辞其咎。别出错，没错，现在孤独一词已经不能描述他的状况了。