The Best, the Worst, the Silliest （美国政治--最好，最差最笨）

A look back at the millennial year

Before we press on with our plans and resolutions for the New Year, we should take a moment to reflect on what the old year taught us about policy, politics and political correctness（正确性）

The year began with a sigh of relief. There was no Y2K meltdown（崩溃），no collapse of the power grid or planes falling form the sky or ATM freeze-ups（冰冻期, 严寒期）.

Our biggest challenge came at the other end of the year, in the workings of the constitutional（构成的, 增强体质的）framework for deciding presidential elections. Jesse Jackson sees a demagogic（煽动的,蛊惑人心的）opportunity; so may Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, the congressional Democratic leaders. But the truth is the republic's means of passing constitutional  legitimacy（合法(性), 正统(性)）and political authority from one administration to the next was a lesson in constitutional process. Democratically elected institutions, from election boards and secretaries of state to legislatures, fulfilled their responsibilities. So in the end did the judicial branch of government. Two centuries after it was created, the constitutional process worked much as its authors had intended.

The best policy initiatives of the year were House and Senate passage of a package of bills that would have phased out death taxes, reduced the marriage penalty（处罚, 罚款）, increased eligibility（适任, 合格）for the low-income tax credit, and increased the amount we could all contribute to our IRAs to $5,000 a year from $2,000. The worst policy decision of the year was President Clinton's veto of all those bills. Their effect would have been to stimulate the economy as it started to slip in the autumn, and they would have given some of the overtaxation surplus（剩余, 过剩, [会计]盈余）back to the people instead of leaving it in Washington for the government to spend.

One of the worst foreign policy blunders（大错, 失误）of the year was the revelation（显示, 揭露, 被揭露的事）of Al Gore's secret 1995 protocol with the Russian government not to punish Russia for the sale of military weaponry（武器, 军备）to Iran before the end of 1999 if it promised not to sell any more thereafter. The concealed Gore-Chernomyrdin protocol was in violation of a Gore-sponsored 1992 law that mandated（命令, 训令, 要求）sanctions（批准, 同意, 支持）against nations selling conventional weapons to nations sponsoring（赞助，支持）terrorism（恐怖主义）. Following its publication, Russia promptly（敏捷地, 迅速地）declared the deal  inoperative（不起作用的）and thus got the best of both worlds.

The USS Cole and the Russian sub Kursk taught us some lessons as well. The attack on the Cole reminded us that the world is still a dangerous place for the American military. Trying to be nice by promising not to shoot first is a politically correct but militarily costly policy. So is training the men and women defending our global interests that their first reaction must be to hesitate. The sinking of the Kursk shows how little Russian governmental thinking has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin's response was indistinguishable from what Stalin or Brehznev would have done: deny the truth, blame the West and cover up your catastrophes（悲惨的, 灾难的）.

Better news was the defeat of the National Governors Association's proposal（提议, 建议）, spearheaded（充当先锋）by Utah's Gov. Mike Leavitt, to impose a national sales tax on Internet commerce. An Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce was established by the Congress to examine the question of whether the Internet should be taxed. Predictably the Caesar Augustus politicians ("And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree form Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." Luke 2:1-7) proposed that a uniform, national Internet sales tax be enacted（制定法律, 颁布）, one that they hoped and believed could be expanded to all goods sold anywhere. Wiser heads prevailed.

But what may turn out to be the most significant policy proposal of 2000 was candidate George W. Bush's idea of allowing workers to invest a portion（一部分, 一分）of their Social Security taxes in individual market accounts. It is the only alternative to substantia（l坚固的, 实质的, 真实的, 充实的） tax increases or benefit reductions（减少, 缩影）to support the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. And it was a textbook example of successful democracy: A serious proposal for reforming a popular government program was debated in a national election, and the reformer won.

Politics of course yielded（引发）an avalanche（雪崩）of memorable（值得纪念的, 难忘的） moments. The candidates wonderfully roasted（烤, 烘, 烘烤）themselves on "Saturday Night Live." Less successful were Mr. Gore's shifting persona in the presidential debates: the sighing we-liberals-know-better demeanor（行为, 风度）of the first one to the caged lion（笼中狮） of the second, and then back again to what William Safire called "lupine lecturing." Had Gore adopted in the debates the style of his concession speech, he might never have had to give it.

Joe Lieberman was the season's biggest political disappointment, for he too had a new and different persona for this campaign. Once a believer in school choice and individual control of a part of one's Social Security accounts, and opposed to racial preferences, Mr. Lieberman reversed himself on all these issues within days of being chosen Mr. Gore's running mate.

The bottom-of-the-barrel award is a tie. It goes to the NAACP for a nasty（污秽的, 肮脏的）and irresponsible television campaign advertisement falsely（虚伪地, 不实地, 错误地）linking Mr. Bush to hate crimes, and to Janet Reno's Justice Department for its gunpoint abduction诱拐. 诱导 ）of Elian Gonzalez because the legal process was not going Ms. Reno's way. Honorable（可敬的, 荣誉的, 光荣的）mention goes to CBS's Dan Rather for his on-air statement an hour or so before calling Florida wrong: "If we say somebody's carried the state, you can take that to the bank."

And political correctness is alive and well across America. Time magazine reports that in response to fans booing at football games the Penn State university faculty（全体教员, (大学的)系, 科）senate passed a resolution denouncing（公开指责, 公然抨击, 谴责）"negative cheering（喝倒彩）" It was to be read over the loudspeaker system at future games--to hoots and jeers from the fans, one hopes.

British PC reared its silly head when the London Underground banned Spitfire beer ads. Spitfire calls itself "the bottle of Britain"; its spirited ads contained tag lines such as "Downed all over Kent, just like the Luftwaffe," and "Goering, Goering, gone."

Of more consequence, a federal appeals court struck down the Ohio state motto "With God all things are possible" on the grounds that it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The quote of the year comes from a Jan. 1 letter from a mother to her descendants（派生的）a century hence: "As I get older the presence of God breaks in on me more and more often. . . . God in the music in the hills, the magic of Christmas, the heat in a room where people have been speaking earnestly（认真地, 诚挚地）, the source of mischief（伤害, 危害, 故障, 恶作剧）in the eyes of your children. . . . My wish for all of you who come next is that you may feel this presence breathe through all your days."

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