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The Age of Obama
The 'Decade of Greed,' etc., R.I.P.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
OCTOBER 29, 2008
安息吧，“贪婪的十年”
HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.著
2008.10月29
Nineteen eighty-two was a lucky time (as your columnist can attest) to be leaving college. Whatever faults various authorities find in the "decade of greed," which was followed by another decade of greed, it marked the start of 25 years of exceptional prosperity and opportunity. Freer trade and the epochal joining of a couple billion Chinese and others into the global division of labor played a role. The ideas of Reagan and Thatcher, bringing the private sector back to a place of honor, played a role.
1982年可是个离开大学的幸运时间（您的专栏作家可以证明这一点）。不论有关专家在这“贪婪的十年”里发现什么瑕疵，而且其后另一个贪婪的十年又接踵而来，它开启了一个25年异常繁荣和充满机会的时代。更加自由的贸易，几十亿中国人和其他国家的人划时代地加入全球劳动大军，发挥了作用。里根和撒切尔让私有行业重归荣耀的主张也发挥了作用。
Is the age of Obama the beginning of a less golden age? We cast no aspersion on the man or his program. Mr. Obama, in his short career, has not strongly associated himself with any policy idea. His relation to his own proposals during the campaign has been pleasantly noncommittal, if generally liberal (as voters and the media are only now getting around to noticing).
奥巴马时代会是黄金成色开始褪色的时代吗？我们无意诽谤这个人或他的计划，然而奥巴马先生在他短暂的职业生涯里，从未对任何政策主张表现过强烈支持的态度。在选战期间他对自己的个人主张的表述给人的感觉一直是八面玲珑、态度暧昧，如果大体上看是主张变革的（正如选民和媒体直到现在才开始注意到）。
His rise offers little insight either. His Senate primary and general election races were smoothed by the serendipitous bowing out of formidable opponents in each case, in divorce-related "scandals." His presidential hopes have been turned overnight into landslide hopes by a financial crisis that has left the public angry and confused, though not one that plays to any expertise of Mr. Obama's.
他的崛起也没有多少玄机了。由于强大对手的意外放弃和离婚“丑闻”，他的参议院初选和大选角逐可以说是一片坦途。他的总统希望由于一场让公众感到愤怒和困惑的金融危机而有望一夜之间获得压倒性胜利，尽管这场危机没有考验过奥巴马的任何才能。
Yet if he wins next week, it could be with a sweeping mandate to decide, er, what his mandate will be. He's a presidential vehicle perfectly designed, or self-designed, to be driven by history, rather than driving it. And he comes just at the moment when, overnight, crashing down is just about every normal restraint against intrusive, redistributing, regulating government.
然而如果他在下周的大选中获胜，可能就会出台一系列内容广泛的政令，这样就可以知道他的政令将是怎样的了。他是个完美设计或自我设计的总统机器，由时势所造，而不是去驾驭它。当突然爆发的经济崩溃按惯例将要对政府实施干预、重新分配和监管政策形成遏制时，他就横空出世了。
This is the door the remarkable Mr. Obama is about to waltz through.
这是神奇的奥巴马先生正要跳着华尔兹顺利通过的大门。
