US President Bush has been having a difficult summer. Recent polls show a considerable decline in public approval of his conduct of the nation's business, yet in just four months voters will decide whether he or Democrat John Kerry is to be the next president. If things are going so badly for Bush, then Kerry must be doing well, right?
Not exactly. Americans outside Massachusetts, which Kerry represents in the Senate, seem to find it hard to relate to the Democratic candidate. His public appearances kindle little enthusiasm. His TV ads sway few viewers. As a result, Kerry supporters tend to be more anti-Bush than they are genuinely pro-Kerry.
Democratic strategists point out that Kerry has a pattern of coming from behind to win political races. And even though Kerry stirs little excitement, many Americans are quite eager to learn whom he will choose as his running mate. A popular vice presidential candidate could energize his campaign, especially since there is little chance that President Bush will dump the much-loathed Richard Cheney from the Republican ticket.
In the meantime, as conservative Paul Nowak points out in this week's cartoon, the Democrats have not been idle. Kerry remains an unknown quantity to most Americans, but better known Democrats are much in the news. Examine the publicity posters in Nowak's cartoon. In both upper corners are ads for ex-President Clinton's lengthy autobiography, MyLife("AsImaginedbyBillClinton", Nowak adds, tongue in cheek). We see from a smaller poster that Hillary Clinton's autobiography is "still in stores" -p;- if anybody is interested. These books, Democrats hope, will remind voters of the prosperity and relative peacefulness of the Clinton presidency.
The newspaper vending machine shows another headline of the day: former Vice President Al Gore claims that Bush has been lying -- though "my internet" is Nowak's comic reference to a notorious exaggeration of Gore's own.
In the centre of the cartoon is an ad for Fahrenheit9/11, Michael Moore's documentary denouncing the ties between the Bush family and the Middle Eastern oil industry. Moore is a left-wing gadfly with a working-class manner who makes films sharply critical of US society. The title of his anti-Bush film, here distorted to "Fahrenhype" ("hype" is the exaggerated blather associated with advertising) , is modeled on that of science fiction author Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit451, which describes a future of systematic censorship and government-engineered optimism and cultural shallowness. Fahrenheit9/11, now in US theatres, is unlikely to convert many Republicans to the Kerry cause, but strategists believe it will fire up Democrats with anti-Bush indignation and get them to the polls in November, no matter how lukewarm they feel towards John Kerry. (聽英文53578)
①真可笑……所有的聒噪和新聞都是關(guān)于克林頓夫婦、戈?duì)柣蚴悄柕?，好像他們想搶約翰·克里的風(fēng)頭。②誰是約翰？③麥克爾·摩爾這個大肥怪造出了《華氏911》，這是給智商低于83的人看的。④該影片由麥當(dāng)勞和漢堡王贊助。⑤戈?duì)栒f：布什說謊，我的因特網(wǎng)能證明。
布什？克里？美國大選花落誰家(圖)
美國總統(tǒng)布什在這個夏天的日子一直都不好過。最近的民意調(diào)查顯示，公眾對他治國方式的認(rèn)可度已顯著下降，可再有4個月，美國選民們就要決定是他還是民主黨人克里擔(dān)任下一屆總統(tǒng)。如果形勢發(fā)展得對布什非常不利，那克里就會表現(xiàn)得很出色，對嗎？
并不完全是這樣?？死锸锹槭〉膮⒆h員，而在麻省以外的地區(qū)，美國人似乎很難認(rèn)同這位民主黨候選人，他在公眾面前的亮相難于激起人們的熱情，他的電視廣告也改變不了幾個觀眾的看法。結(jié)果呢，克里的支持者往往是出于對布什的反對，而不是對克里的真誠支持。
民主黨戰(zhàn)略專家指出，克里在政治比賽中具有后來者居上的風(fēng)格。雖說克里激不起太大的興奮，但很多美國人相當(dāng)急切地想知道他會選擇誰作為自己的競選伙伴，一個受大眾歡迎的副總統(tǒng)候選人有可能給克里的競選增光添彩，特別是在布什總統(tǒng)幾乎不可能從共和黨候選人名單中拋棄令人厭煩的副總統(tǒng)切尼的情況之下。
與此同時，正如保守派漫畫家保羅·諾瓦克在本周的這幅漫畫中指出的，民主黨人可沒閑著。雖說大多數(shù)美國人對克里不大了解，但比較知名的民主黨人的新聞報(bào)道卻有很多?？匆豢催@幅漫畫中的海報(bào)吧，在上面左右兩個角，是前總統(tǒng)克林頓所寫的長篇自傳《我的生活》的廣告(諾瓦克以挖苦的語氣給該書名加上了一句“這是克林頓的杜撰”)。在較小的海報(bào)上，我們可以看到希拉里寫的自傳“還在書店里”———如果有誰感興趣想讀的話。民主黨人希望這些書能夠讓選民想起克林頓執(zhí)政期間繁榮的經(jīng)濟(jì)與比較和平的環(huán)境。
自動售報(bào)機(jī)讓我們看到了當(dāng)天的又一頭條新聞：前副總統(tǒng)戈?duì)柭暦Q布什一直在說謊———然而戈?duì)栍昧恕拔业囊蛱鼐W(wǎng)”一詞是諾瓦克對眾所周知的戈?duì)枑劭浯笃湓~的作風(fēng)所進(jìn)行的嘲諷(戈?duì)柕拇_為因特網(wǎng)的發(fā)展做了很多工作)。
在漫畫的中部是一則廣告，廣告是為電影《華氏911》做宣傳，這部由麥克爾·摩爾拍攝的紀(jì)錄片譴責(zé)了布什家族與中東石油業(yè)的密切聯(lián)系。摩爾是具有勞動階級風(fēng)格的左翼“牛虻”，他拍的電影尖銳地批評了美國社會。而這部反對布什的電影的片名，在漫畫中被歪曲成“Fahrenhype”，詞尾變成了hype，而hype意為“夸大其詞的宣傳”。片名是模仿科幻作家雷·伯拉德伯雷的作品《華氏451》，該小說描繪了未來政府的系統(tǒng)審查、政府蓄意營造的樂觀主義和文化的膚淺?！度A氏911》目前正在美國上映，但這也不大可能使很多共和黨人轉(zhuǎn)變立場支持克里。不過戰(zhàn)略家們相信，這將鼓動起很多民主黨人對布什的憤慨，從而使他們在11月走向投票站，無論他們對克里的感覺是多么冷淡。