密歇根新闻广播 过去的政治家愿意支持两党合作

 

A year ago today, Michigan and the nation stunned¹ the world by electing a President whose platform essentially² repudiated³ a bipartisan legacy⁴ of steadily⁵ increasing international ties on issues from military affairs to the environment to trade.

My guess is that few now know much about a Michigan Republican whose career was the exact reverse of Donald Trump's, but who was a giant of a statesman when our current president was born. Arthur H. Vandenberg started his political career as a dyed-in-the-wool isolationist, a provincial⁶ newspaper editor who managed to get himself appointed to the U.S. Senate.

There, his outlook was initially⁷ so predictable and bourgeois⁸ that he was compared to Sinclair Lewis's anti-intellectual businessman George Babbitt. But the man from Grand Rapids grew to become not only a titan of the Senate, but a man who helped convince his party and the nation that isolationism was economically and politically obsolete⁹.

He was the architect of the now nearly forgotten spirit of bipartisan cooperation, especially in foreign policy, that was a hallmark of the Cold War. He was a man who flirted¹⁰ with running for president, but never quite did -- partly for a reason I found stunning¹¹.

Hendrik "Hank" Meijer, the executive chairman of the company that bears his name, has worked for almost 30 years on the first modern biography of the man Edward R. Murrow called "the central pivot¹²" of American foreign policy.

His just-published, Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century, gives us a vivid portrait of a man capable of something many of us are not: He had the intellectual honesty to admit that he had been dead wrong.

In his late fifties, after America was forced into a Second World War he'd bitterly opposed, Vandenberg realized that his long-held belief in isolationism was a mistake.

With that, Vandenberg threw himself and his considerable clout¹³ in the Senate into saving the world. He was a very influential¹⁴ delegate to the convention that organized the United Nations.

He, not President Truman, was the man who got the Marshall Plan and the resolution founding NATO through a distrustful Republican Congress. And beginning with an epic¹⁵ conference on Mackinac Island, Vandenberg took the lead in converting his party from isolationism to internationalism; not for nothing was he called "the indispensable man."

Yet he was also a very human one. Photographs of Vandenberg make him seem the quintessential stuffed shirt; a white-haired imperial figure chomping¹⁶ a cigar in a three-piece suit. But his torrid affair with the wife of a diplomat¹⁷ who may have been a British spy may have been one reason he never made a serious run at the presidency¹⁸.

Though I've been waiting for this book for years, this may be the time it is needed most. "Decades later, the qualities that defined him are again in demand," Meijer concluded.

The key to Vanderberg, he believes, was his belief in a national philosophy of "enlightened self-interest" and a "mastery of bipartisan collaboration¹⁹ at a time when his fellow citizens hungered for direction."

Hank Meijer will be discussing his book tonight at 6:30 at a free public event at the Library of Michigan in Lansing. If I weren't teaching, I would be there.

Jack²⁰ Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's Senior Political Analyst²¹. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

1 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

2 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

3 repudiated   

v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务）

参考例句：

• All slanders and libels should be repudiated. 一切诬蔑不实之词，应予推倒。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The Prime Minister has repudiated racist remarks made by a member of the Conservative Party. 首相已经驳斥了一个保守党成员的种族主义言论。 来自辞典例句

4 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

5 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

6 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

7 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

8 bourgeois   

adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子

参考例句：

• He's accusing them of having a bourgeois and limited vision.他指责他们像中产阶级一样目光狭隘。
• The French Revolution was inspired by the bourgeois.法国革命受到中产阶级的鼓励。

9 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

10 flirted   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She flirted her fan. 她急速挥动着扇子。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• During his four months in Egypt he flirted with religious emotions. 在埃及逗留的这四个月期间，他又玩弄起宗教情绪来了。 来自辞典例句

11 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

12 pivot   

v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的

参考例句：

• She is the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things.她是创造的中心枢轴，表现出万物的女性面貌。
• If a spring is present,the hand wheel will pivot on the spring.如果有弹簧，手轮的枢轴会装在弹簧上。

13 clout   

n.用手猛击；权力，影响力

参考例句：

• The queen may have privilege but she has no real political clout.女王有特权，但无真正的政治影响力。
• He gave the little boy a clout on the head.他在那小男孩的头部打了一下。

14 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

15 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

16 chomping   

v.切齿，格格地咬牙，咬响牙齿( chomp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Elizabeth and Lawrence are chomping at the bit to go on vacation. 伊莉莎白和劳伦斯迫不及待要去度假了。 来自互联网
• She was chomping away on a bagel. 她在嘎蹦嘎嘣地啃着一个硬面包圈。 来自互联网

17 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

18 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

19 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

20 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

21 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。