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美国两党僵局结束,政府重新开启,共和党惨败,继续被媒体奚落。
美国人在政府关闭期间体现了高度的耐心和对“游戏规则”的尊重。但是,不论是玩儿游戏的领袖们,还是普通记者、公民,都清楚这是个类似“小孩子跟大人耍脾气”的稚嫩把戏。
任性的小孩子往往靠哭和耍赖来“要挟”家长以达到自己的目的。小孩子在学校则不会这样做。有的不成熟的成年人也会玩儿耍赖要挟的把戏,把“一条路走到黑”、顽固当成了倔强、理智。记得以前有个俏皮话形容这等人物:冬天茅房里的砖头,又臭又硬!
小孩子人性、思维不成熟是有情可原的。但是,这些成年的“领袖”们、被选民选出的政客们为了“赌气”和党派之争而让国家遭受不必要的负面影响和“浪费感情”是要付出代价的!
在以众议院议长贝纳尔和共和党领袖麦克康奈尔为首的共和党在阻止“奥巴马医保”并要挟关闭政府之前心里很清楚,如果民主党不让步,“关闭政府”不过是个短期的“小孩子任性”的举动,在双方僵持下,政府还是要乖乖地重新开启运作。可是,共和党赌气赌的是“奥巴马以及民主党会妥协”。
共和党领袖麦克康纳尔为了给同僚赢得时间死死坚守与民主党的谈判,直到最后一刻。但是,周二,贝纳尔的法案由于遭受自己党派放弃而没有通过,使得这个任性的大孩子完全“丢了面子”,要挟民主党的“政府关闭”告一段落。
贝纳尔的弱势再一次成为笑柄,他自己对同僚们(又臭又硬的砖头在认输时)说:“我宁愿把手里的手雷扔掉,也不敢在接着它!”
本来他想用“手里的手雷”威胁奥巴马和民主党让步,现在,贝纳尔没辙了,知道任性、自私、耍脾气是很不酷的了。
美国媒体海量评论和分析精彩纷呈。很多资深编辑和记者写作水准相当高,“政论”写得像精彩的散文、杂文,用词造句犀利、精悍,论点明确,毫无拖泥带水和裹脚布的感觉,读起来爽快,幽默处令人捧腹。
《新共和》的一位资深编辑在共和党失败后刚刚发表了一篇评论文章,措辞异常强烈,将贝纳尔和麦克康奈尔的最后僵持比喻为“诈尸”!!全文如下:
John Boehner's Shutdown Endgame:
"The Final Spasm of a Corpse"
by Noam Scheiber
Source:New Republic
贝纳尔面子、里子全完!
On Monday I wrote that the shutdown/default-threat/Republican extortion plot was essentially over—it was just a matter of Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, hammering out the final details of a deal whose contours were coming into focus. Once they’d reached a deal, it would pass the Senate with a fair amount of bipartisan support. After which John Boehner would tearfully bring it to the floor of the House in defiance of the so-called Hastert Rule (requiring a majority of House Republicans to support a bill before it can come to a vote),possibly with some minor face-saving alteration that the Senate signaled it could accept.
“共和党议员是群疯子”
Regrettably, I was wrong. As it happens, Reid and McConnell came very close to inking a deal Monday night, but then McConnell suspended their negotiations on Tuesday to give Boehner a chance at passing a bill, which promptly collapsed under the weight of his own ineptitude and your basic garden-variety House Republican lunacy, at which point Reid and McConnell resumed their negotiation over a deal that will soon pass the Senate and force Boehner’s hand. Which is to say, I missed the all-important “let’s briefly pause so Boehner can flail helplessly while the entire world looks on in horror before we officially end this thing” step in the process.
In retrospect, I’m not sure how I overlooked it. That final pathetic lurch is a tradition Boehner inaugurated during the fiscal cliff negotiation last December (recall “Plan B,” which Boehner also chose to euthanize before it came to a vote in the House). There was every reason to believe he’d observe that same sacrament this time around.
“共和党诈尸”--共和党政党的合法性“诈尸”
But don’t mistake it for anything other than what it was: the final spasm of a still-fresh corpse, the corpse being the GOP’s legitimacy as a political entity, to say nothing of its negotiating position in this particular conflict. If Boehner had actually had the votes to pass a bill that reopened the government and raised the debt ceiling while enacting a few modest Republican priorities—which is to say, a bill that would have been taken seriously inside Washington and put Democrats in something of a bind—he would have done it days ago, in time to give himself some actual leverage. As Boehner told his caucus, you’d “rather throw a grenade than catch a grenade.” But he didn’t have the votes. With his conservative members still lingering in a different dimension, and their peasant army of activists and moneymen declaring anything short of death to Obamacare a capitulation, it was utterly hopeless. Boehner, as is his wont, simply unpinned a grenade he knew he didn’t have the arm-strength to throw.
贝纳尔在自己营造的精神病院小跑儿,不撞南墙不回头
In the end, I’m rather relieved that this all happened Tuesday—still relatively early in the process as these things go. A few savvy congressional reporters lamented that we’d lost an entire day while Boehner took a final lap around the mental institution he runs, possibly pushing the resolution of the showdown beyond Thursday. But if you size up the situation from a bit of a distance, you see that Boehner’s final farcical move almost certainly sped things up. Given that the House GOP almost always lurches away from the eventual solution at least once before swallowing its pride and allowing it to pass, far better to get it out of their system Tuesday rather than waiting till Thursday night, with only a few hours to go before D-Day.
Better yet, the fact that it happened before Reid and McConnell had finished their negotiation—with McConnell having suspended the negotiation to give Boehner a chance to embarrass himself further—strengthens Reid’s hand at the margin and allows him to strike a slightly more favorable deal.
适可而止,别再任性,值得表扬
All of which is to say, it’s hard not to be encouraged by this latest development. Boehner’s pathetically weak hand was always going to be exposed. On Tuesday, he did us the courtesy of completely exposing it before the last possible moment. I, for one, think we owe the House speaker a (tiny) measure of thanks.
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