Robert F. Kennedy Is Remembered as a Liberal Icon. Here's the Truth About His Politics
第一篇来自 New Yorker
1. "Generational memories belong to a generation, and fade as they do."
2. "There has rarely been a sadder moment in American life—not just shocking in the way that John Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s deaths had been, but tragic in a way that confirmed that something absolutely and permanently was going wrong, an act that italicized the fact that violence, particularly gun violence,would inescapably go on shaping American life and history."
Italicize: to underscore (written matter) with a single line to indicate italics.
仿写：There has rarely been a sadder moment in Chinese life—not only astonishing in a way that Mao's and Deng's deaths had been, but dramatic in a way that attested to something totally absurd and forever mysterious, a fact that italicized the power of authoritarianism.
3. "what is being remembered today is not the nominating fight that Kennedy opportunistically leapt into, but the Presidency that didn’t happen."
仿写： What is being remembered today is not the achievements that he had fortunately made in stages, but the legacies that he left to the world.
4. "And to the degree that he did play consigliereto his brother, he did it for the best."
仿写：He knows how to keep things under his control. To the degree that he did play double-agent to his wife, he did it for the best.
5. "People who knew him before and people who knew him then agree that he grew morally through his grief. His capacity for compassion vastly expanded; his understanding of the plight of the poor and of African-American and Latino people, particularly, vastly increased; even his understanding of the tragedy in Vietnam, which his brother had extended, grew as well."
仿写：He was better known for his experience that he grew morally through his grief. His compassion for politics, his understanding of the dire life of the bottom 40% and even his love for his own country.
6. "we can put Bobby Kennedy in the pantheon of American semi-saints. He was a man who enabled some wrong, and tried to do much good. Half tints are the colors in which the story of democracy is necessarily painted, and semi-saints the only kind we get."
这一句写得特别好，“我们需要的不是一个完美的圣人，而是时而犯错但不断尝试做好事的半圣人。”
仿写：What Chinese are looking for in the leaders are all-saints. He is not allowed to do anything wrong but has to do right things all his life. In the story of Chinese exemplary figures, all-saints is the only kind we get.
the late-leaping person 后来居上者
Liberals are on the side of the late-leaping Bobby.
a placeholder and door-opener 掌权者及开路者
He was a mere placeholder and door-opener in the spotlight but no one knew the truth behind the scenes.
a note of wounded virtue and sensitivity 一种受挫的品德及一丝敏感
a note of: a type of feeling or quality when someone speaks or does something
There was a note of doubt in her voice.
in any fantasy of semi-messianic redemption 拯救世界的幻想
The fantasy of messianic redemption is embedded in the Star War.
brood on/over: think (about sth) for a long time in a troubled or resentful way
When he's depressed he sits brooding for hours.
After his brother's death, he was shocked brooding on his future in politics.
clear-eyed: Having sharp, bright eyes; keen-sighted, mentally acute or perceptive.
He is so clear-eyed that he can see through you any time.
by/from all accounts: according to what a lot of people say 据大家说
It has, from all accounts, been a successful marriage.
come to the core: to come straight to the point
an unwinnable war 注定失败的战争
The Vietnam War was an unwinnable war at the very beginning.
the Commies: the communists
