希拉里污染了奥巴马
The Clinton Contamination
华盛顿——由于不会被起诉，希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)似乎正顺风顺水地走向她的总统宝座，这太能说明我们和她之间的关系了。
WASHINGTON — IT says a lot about our relationship with Hillary Clinton that she seems well on her way to becoming Madam President because she’s not getting indicted.
要是还在国务院，她会被撤职，因为FBI局长对国会说，她对绝密信息的处理“极其大意”。然而现在，她将得到的是一次风光的升职。
If she were still at the State Department, she could be getting fired for being, as the F.B.I. director told Congress, “extremely careless” with top-secret information. Instead, she’s on a glide path to a big promotion.
克林顿夫妇行事就是这样横冲直撞，没有辜负美国政界“布坎南夫妇”（小说《了不起的盖茨比》中的人物。——译注）的名声。他们那漫无边际的疏失大意害了身边所有的人，但自己却能屹立不倒，甚至过得还挺不错。
And that’s the corkscrew way things go with the Clintons, who are staying true to their reputation as the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of American politics. Their vast carelessness drags down everyone around them, but they persevere, and even thrive.
仅用了11天，克林顿夫妇傲慢、自私的行为就玷污了华盛顿最纯净的三块招牌——贝拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)、詹姆斯·科米(James Comey)和洛蕾塔·林奇(Loretta Lynch)——并令几位对希拉里忠心耿耿的助手前途堪忧。
In a mere 11 days, arrogant, selfish actions by the Clintons contaminated three of the purest brands in Washington — Barack Obama, James Comey and Loretta Lynch — and jeopardized the futures of Hillary’s most loyal aides.
如今回顾希拉里的国务卿任命，我们发现，奥巴马想要用一个没有诡诈的希拉里，真是很离奇。（当然，我们都想看到一个那样的希拉里。）
It’s quaint, looking back at her appointment as secretary of state, how Obama tried to get Hillary without the shadiness. (Which is what we all want, of course.)
总统和他的助手试图对克林顿的国务院加以管束——拒绝让她召入其金牌打手西德尼·布鲁门塔尔(Sidney Blumenthal)。
The president and his aides attempted to keep a rein on Clinton’s State Department — refusing to let her bring in her hit man, Sidney Blumenthal.
但最终，希拉里的脏水还是溅到了奥巴马身上。在决定对克林顿进行政治控诉而不是法律起诉后，科米成功地惹怒了民主、共和两党，此后的周二，拜瑞（Barry，指奥巴马总统。——译注）和希拉里飞往北卡罗来纳州夏洛特，那是他们在竞选活动中首次携手亮相。
But in the end, Hillary’s goo got on Obama anyhow. On Tuesday, after Comey managed to make both Democrats and Republicans angry by indicting Clinton politically but not legally, Barry and Hillary flew to Charlotte, N.C., for their first joint campaign appearance.
奥巴马陷入了一个尴尬境地，他在为希拉里作担保，说她有治理一个愤怒、暴力、不安的国家所需要的“沉稳判断力”；就在同一天，他的FBI局长痛斥她肆无忌惮地拒不使用国务院的邮件系统，并表明过去16个月里她一直在向美国民众撒谎。
Obama was left in the awkward position of vouching for Hillary’s “steady judgment” to run an angry, violent, jittery nation on the very day that his F.B.I. director lambasted her errant judgment on circumventing the State Department email system, making it clear that she had been lying to the American public for the last 16 months.
科米随即在周四前往国会接受聆讯，并透露在交给国务院的邮件中，有110封含有保密信息，而不是像希拉里坚称的一封也没有。克林顿保证那些摆在查帕阔的地下室里的服务器没有被入侵过，但科米说，克林顿的电邮账号可能被恶意攻入过。在那些没有交给国务院的邮件中，他说有至少三封包含保密信息。
Comey, who was then yanked up to Capitol Hill for a hearing on Thursday, revealed that instead of no emails with classified information, as Hillary had insisted, there were 110, of those turned over to the State Department. Instead of Clinton’s assurances that the server in the basement in Chappaqua had never been breached, Comey said it was possible that hostile actors had hacked Clinton’s email account. Among the emails not given to State, he said at least three contained classified information.
总统认为自己需要靠希拉里来巩固自己的政治遗产，但她已经危及他的声誉。去年秋天奥巴马在FBI尚未完成调查的情况下，先行一步对CBS《60分钟》(60 Minutes)说，“这事不至于给美国的国家安全带来威胁。”而这种为她脱罪的言论对调查工作是一种打击。
Hillary had already compromised the president, who feels he needs her to cement his legacy. Obama angered F.B.I. agents when he was interviewed on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last fall and undermined the bureau’s investigation by exonerating Hillary before the F.B.I. was done with its work, saying pre-emptively, “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
再一次，希拉里让自己凌驾于规则之上，让总统、竞选团队和民主党被迫变着法地为她辩护。
Hillary willfully put herself above the rules — again — and a president, campaign and party are all left twisting themselves into pretzels defending her.
奥巴马力求明人不做暗事，但克林顿夫妇是见不得光的。
Obama aimed to have no shadows, but the Clintons operate in shadows.
在比尔·克林顿穿过菲尼克斯的机场跑道和林奇进行一场长谈后，部长承认这次不明智的会面给她的司法部调查他妻子的行动“蒙上了阴影”，因此她在采纳FBI的建议时会有所顾忌。
After Bill Clinton crossed the tarmac in Phoenix to have a long chat with Lynch, the attorney general confessed that the ill-advised meeting had “cast a shadow” over her department’s investigation into his wife and that she would feel constrained to follow the recommendation of the F.B.I.
“今后我肯定不会这么做了，”林奇说，她承认此事给她带来了“沉痛的”打击，让她认识到，在朦胧月色下和阿肯色恶魔翩翩起舞是个错误。
“I certainly wouldn’t do it again,” Lynch said, admitting it hit her “painfully” that she had made a mistake dancing with the Arkansas devil in the pale moonlight.
一周后，这场会面显得更加可疑了，据时报报道，希拉里可能会把林奇留在新一届克林顿政府中。
The meeting seemed even more suspect a week later, when The Times reported that Hillary might let Lynch stay on in a new Clinton administration.
电邮丑闻已经殃及追随希拉里多年的几名助手的前途，包括雪莉·米尔斯(Cheryl Mills)、胡玛·阿贝丁(Huma Abedin)和杰克·苏利文(Jake Sullivan)，他们对保密信息的处理方式，也被科米斥为极其大意。据时报报道，等到他们要为一些外交或国家安全职位接受安全审查的时候，可能要面对一些尖锐的问题。（更何况他们没有在使用私人服务器的事上阻止克林顿，已经是一种疏忽。）
The fallout from the email scandal has clouded the futures of longtime Hillary aides Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, who were also deemed extremely careless by Comey for their handling of classified information. The Times reported that they could face tough questions as they seek security clearances for diplomatic or national security posts. (Not to mention remiss in not pushing back on Clinton about the private server.)
“现在的情况是，这个可能要以总统的身份负责国家安全决策的女人，被FBI判定在保密信息的保卫和处理上是不称职的，”专精安全审查的华盛顿律师比尔·萨瓦里诺(Bill Savarino)说。
“You’ve got a situation here where the woman who would be in charge of setting national security policy as president has been deemed by the F.B.I. unsuitable to safeguard and handle classified information,” Bill Savarino, a Washington lawyer specializing in security clearances, told the Times.
在这篇专栏里出现了这么多律师，却见不到什么法律。
So many lawyers in this column, so little law.
借用约翰·欧文(John Irving)的一句老话，奥巴马总统并不介意被卷进克林顿“水下逆流”(Clinton Under Toad)。他认为华盛顿有大问题，要维持它的运转，下一任总统需要具备一套具体的技能，而他认为希拉里就是这样一个人。
President Obama is not upset about being pulled into the Clinton Under Toad, to use an old John Irving expression. He thinks Washington is so broken that the next president will need a specific skill set to function, and he thinks Hillary has that.
奥巴马绕过了自己的副总统去热烈欢迎希拉里，但电邮违规应该让他感到不安，因为这样的事并非只此一例。它只是一长串道德沦丧、遮遮掩掩、妄想多疑和附带伤害的劣迹的一部分。
But what should disturb Obama, who bypassed his own vice president to lay out the red carpet for Hillary, is that the email transgression is not a one off. It’s part of a long pattern of ethical slipping and sliding, obsessive secrecy and paranoia, and collateral damage.
科米对希拉里的定性是“疏忽”，人们对此的反应更多是叹气而不是惊讶。我们都知道希拉里和比尔是何方神圣了。我们被他们的喜好和错综复杂的阴谋劫持已经不是一年两年了。（接受《国会山报》[The Hill]采访时，科米拒绝证实或否认他在调查克林顿基金会。一些捐款人和跟政府有往来的人通过这个机构不体面地搅和在一起。）
Comey’s verdict that Hillary was “negligent” was met with sighs rather than shock. We know who Hillary and Bill are now. We’ve been held hostage to their predilections and braided intrigues for a long time. (On the Hill, Comey refused to confirm or deny that he’s investigating the Clinton Foundation, with its unseemly tangle of donors and people doing business with State.)
我们听任克林顿夫妇一门心思地钻营着自己的事，毫不在意这些不管不顾的行为给他人造成的后果。他们一直想跟我们做一个浮士德式的交易。今年的选举交换条件：要么忍受我们的恶行，要么就等着核按钮落在特朗普的小手里吧。
We’re resigned to the Clintons focusing on their viability and disregarding the consequences of their heedless actions on others. They’re always offering a Faustian deal. This year’s election bargain: Put up with our iniquities or get Trump’s short fingers on the nuclear button.
克林顿夫妇非常努力，但不按规则行事。想象一下他们入主白宫而且没人对他们有太高期许的情形吧。
The Clintons work hard but don’t play by the rules. Imagine them in the White House with the benefit of low expectations.