Two Bills（雙語）

07-16

Two Bills

兩個比爾

When Bill Clinton and Bill Gates played golf on Martha』s Vineyard a few years ago, they didn』t click. The President gave Gates a heavy dose of the Clinton treatment, oozing charm and seeking emotional common ground in the fact that both had recently lost their mothers. Clinton must have been disappointed by the cool response of Gates, who saw the subject as unduly personal. Gates, for his part, was put off that Clinton didn』t engage him on his favorite topic, technology. When the golfing ended, the two men went their separate ways. Gates didn』t take sides in the Clinton-Dole election a couple of years later. Clinton let his Justice Department pursue a potentially devastating antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

幾年前，比爾·柯林頓和比爾·蓋茨在馬撒葡萄園打了一場高爾夫球，兩人相處不那麼融洽。柯林頓總統以自己慣用的熱烈的待人接物方式對待蓋茨，滿臉魅力，笑容可掬。因為兩人都新近喪母，所以他滿以為能在兩人之間找到共同語言。柯林頓結果肯定是大失所望，因為蓋茨反應冷淡，認為這一話題純屬個人私事，不宜談論。蓋茨也滿心不快，因為柯林頓沒有讓他談自己最喜歡的話題——科技。高爾夫球打完，兩人分道揚鑣。幾年後柯林頓和多爾競爭總統職位，蓋茨沒有支持任何一方。而柯林頓聽任司法部對微軟公司提出反壟斷訴訟——這對微軟公司可能是一場毀滅性的打擊。

It』s not hard to see why these two larger-than-life figures – one is the world』s most powerful man, one the richest – didn』t become fast friends: the two Bills are as different as the two ends of the baby-boom generation they represent. Clinton, who entered college in 1964, is dripping with Sixties values: a John F. Kennedy-style belief in public service as a calling; an Age-of-Aquarius focus on emotional connection; and a countercultural streak of sex, drugs, and rock』 n』 roll. Gates, who came of age in the 1970s, has a Watergate-year detachment from politics, a mind-set more me-generation than 「love-in」, and a passion for the great revolutionary force of his own decade: the personal computer.

不難看出這兩位帶有傳奇色彩的人物——世界上最有權者和最有錢者——為什麼沒有成為密友。因為兩個比爾稟性大不一樣，他們分別代表了戰後生育高峰首尾兩端出生的這一代人。柯林頓1964年進大學，滿腦子浸透了60年代的價值觀念：他的身上既有約翰·肯尼迪式的以服務大眾為己任的信念，也有大同時代的人所特有情感專註，同時還帶有縱慾、吸毒、迷戀搖滾樂之類反文化的個人特性。蓋茨70年代長大成人，具有水門事件年代的人對政治冷漠超然的特點，其心態更接近」惟我的一代」，而不是頹廢派；他熱衷於個人電腦，將其視為自己這十年的一種極具革命性的動力。

But Clinton and Gates are remarkably alike in other ways, particularly in their flaws. Both have almost limitless drive and self-absorption and a willingness to push the rules to the edge – or pass it – to get what they want. When called to account, both have been dismissive of the legal process and have had a strained relationship with the truth. These qualities have landed both men in similar binds: Clinton is waiting to hear if he will be removed from office; Gates is fending off the Justice Department』s effort to rein in, or even carve up, Microsoft. Their flaws will take center this week, as both men mount defenses in their respective trials.

但在其他一些方面，柯林頓與蓋茨卻明顯地相似，尤其是在兩人的缺點方面。兩人卻有無窮的幹勁和自我專註，為了得到自己想要的東西，置各種條規於不顧，或越過條規。當要求他們對自己的所作所為進行解釋時，兩人都蔑視法律程序，歪曲事實。這些特點使兩人陷入了相似的困境：柯林頓正在聽候最後的判決，不知會不會遭到彈劾；而蓋茨正在設法招架司法部對微軟公司的控制，乃至肢解。兩人的這些缺點本周會格外引人注目，因為他們將在各自的案件中為自己辯護。

Both men found their callings early. Clinton was elected a senator at Boys Nation at 16. On a Washington field trip that year, he shook hands with President Kennedy – an iconic moment captured in a photo. After Yale Law School and a Rhodes scholarship, Clinton, at 32, became governor of Arkansas. The single-minded rise to political power is a timeless story, but Clinton』s came with the distinctive trappings of his era: The scruffy beard and antiwar protests while at Oxford, the experimentation with pot, the civil rights movement sensibility and the feminist wife who kept her name – at least initially.

兩人都少年得志。柯林頓16歲時就被選為」少年國會」的領袖。那年他到華盛頓進行校外考察，曾跟肯尼迪總統握過手——這一具有象徵意義的時刻被攝人了鏡頭。從耶魯大學法院畢業，獲得羅茲獎學金之後，32歲的柯林頓成為阿肯色州州長。一心從政而獲取政權者是一個永恆的話題。然而，柯林頓的平步青雲則明顯地帶有當時那個時代的印記：在牛津，他留著亂蓬蓬的鬍鬚，他參加反戰抗議活動，他體驗過吸大麻的滋味，他對民權運動很敏感，娶了一位主張男女平等的妻子，婚後仍保留閨名——至少最初如此。

（許建平譯）