hanaのつれずれなるままに

Mr. Conservative

ちょっと微妙に影の薄い、マケイン氏の話。確かに米国中あれだけ民主党の両議員が話題になったら、マケイン氏なんてどう話題にしていいかわからないですよね。
保守派と本人は言っていても、保守派の人からは保守派でないと言われているようで。

うーーん。こんな単語チェックしてたら、先に進めないだろうなあ・・・。

● juxtaposition：並列

Alert Washingtonians were treated to an odd juxtaposition not long ago.

not long ago：つい最近まで

● boo：（非難して）ブーという

John McCain was booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the big annual gathering of the right-wing tribes, while trying to establish that he was a conservative.

while (he was) trying to establish
establish that :（that 以下）を立証する

ジョン・マケインは、右翼の大規模な年次集会であるConservative Political Action Conferenceで、自分は保守であると立証しようとしている間中、非難され続けた。

● flunk：をしくじる、不合格にさせる

Some flatly flunk him.

flatly：きっぱりと

● spake：文語 speakの過去形

Thus spake James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family and a leader of the Christian right:

"I am convinced Senator McCain is not a conservative." He's not one of us, these conservatives have insisted.

「確信しています。マケイン議員が保守派ではないと」

● luminary：（その道の）指導者

But McCain also went out of his way to invoke another conservative luminary, pointedly quoting him twice.

go out of one's way：
自分の道［やり方］から反れる、回り道をする、わざわざ～する、格別に努力する
invoke：～を思い起こさせる
pointedly：するどく、辛辣に


● reinvent：改革する ← re＋invent じゃん・・・

Society’s traditions, after all, embody an evolved collective wisdom that even (or especially) the smartest of individuals cannot hope to understand comprehensively, much less reinvent successfully.

much less ：まして～でない


● disdain：軽視する、軽蔑する ← ボキャ 5-41

Above all, he abhorred utopian reformers, who, by disdaining real-world constraints and overestimating their own intelligence, invariably worsen what they seek to improve.

In 2001, George W. Bush came to office disdainful of "small ball," determined to be a "transformative" figure.

disdainful：やたらと批判する、軽蔑的な、尊大な

● tyrannize：～に暴政を行う、圧制する

He would caution against forcibly uprooting the authority structures of a long-tyrannized society like Iraq and expecting a mini-America to spring forth.

● intent：意図

Starting with Barry Goldwater’s campaign of 1964, American conservatism repositioned itself as a revolutionary movement, intent on uprooting illegitimate and ineffective liberal structures.

● pledge：制約する

In the 2008 presidential race, Mike Huckabee railed against corporate greed, promised to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, and pledged (fancifully) to bring about “energy independence” (whatever that is) by the end of his second term; yet his conservative credentials met with less skepticism among the rank and file than did McCain’s.

● stridency：甲高いこと、耳障り

Nowadays, the harder core of the movement barely gives politicians the time of day unless they renounce incremental reform in favor of the root-and-branch variety, and denounce government with a stridency that owes less to Burke than to the New Left.

● incrementalism：〔政策などの〕漸進主義

And then there is McCain. As eclectic a reformer as he has been in the Senate, he has been consistent in his incrementalism.

● newfangled：最新（式）の、流行している


He has been an old-fashioned budget balancer, not a newfangled supply-sider.

● grandiose：壮大な、大げさな

In the presidential primaries, he showed little interest in grandiose promises.

● inconsistency：つじつまの合わないこと、不一致、矛盾

Indeed, some of what his detractors view as inconsistencies display a distinctly Burkean logic.

consistency：一貫性、調和

● stratagem：戦略、計略

Not if you think that marriage is best handled by the states, which have handled it since Colonial times, or that there is nothing conservative about preemptively amending the Constitution to end-run the Supreme Court, a stratagem future liberals could have all kinds of fun with.

● flip-flop：突然の変更、かたとのないサンダル

Flip-flop?

● harsh：〔態度・言動などが〕厳しい、辛辣な

In the face of resistance from Bush and his own party, McCain fought heroically for a law restraining harsh treatment of terror-war detainees, yet more recently he voted against legislation imposing on the Central Intelligence Agency the same stringent ban on coercive interrogation that the U.S. Army observes. Hypocrisy?

● coercive：強制的な、高圧的な ← coercion 強制 ボキャ 6-41

In the face of resistance from Bush and his own party, McCain fought heroically for a law restraining harsh treatment of terror-war detainees, yet more recently he voted against legislation imposing on the Central Intelligence Agency the same stringent ban on coercive interrogation that the U.S. Army observes.

● heresy：異説、反論、異論 ← ボキャ 3-63

To movement conservatives, McCain represented heresy.