American Rhetoric: William Jefferson Clinton - Eulogy for Robert Byrd | wjclintonrobertbyrdeulogy

Address at the Memorial Service for Robert Byrd

在罗伯特·伯德追悼会上的讲话

delivered 2 July 2010, West Virginia State Capitol, Charleston, West Virginia

2010 年 7 月 2 日交付，西弗吉尼亚州议会大厦，查尔斯顿，西弗吉尼亚州

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

[真实性认证：以下文本版本直接从音频转录]

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

Governor, all the members of Senator Byrd's family, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Madam Speaker, Congressman Rahall, and all the House members here, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, the senators; thank you, Senator Rockefeller and thank you, Vicki Kennedy.

州长，伯德参议员的所有家人，总统先生，副总统先生，议长女士，国会议员拉哈尔，以及在座的所有众议院议员，里德参议员，麦康奈尔参议员，各位参议员；谢谢洛克菲勒参议员，谢谢维基·肯尼迪。

I'd also like to thank all the people here who at the time of his passing or ever worked for Robert Byrd who helped him to succeed for the people of West Virginia.

我还要感谢在罗伯特·伯德去世时或曾经为他工作过的所有人，他们帮助他为西弗吉尼亚州人民取得了成功。

I thank them.

我感谢他们。

And, I want to thank the Martin Luther King [Jr.] Male Chorus .

而且，我要感谢马丁·路德·金男声合唱团。

They gave us a needed break from all these politicians talking up here.

他们给了我们一个必要的休息时间，让我们远离所有这些政客在这里的言论。

I want to say first that I come here to speak for two members my family.

我首先想说的是，我来这里是为了代表我的两位家人发言。

Hillary wanted to be here today and she paid her respects to Senator Byrd as he lay in state in the United States Senate before making a trip on behalf of our country to Central and Eastern Europe.

希拉里今天想来到这里，在代表我国访问中欧和东欧之前，她在美国参议院的安息日向伯德参议员表示敬意。

I am grateful to Bob Byrd for many things, but one thing that no one has given enough attention to in my opinion today is that while he always wanted to be the best senator, and he always wanted to be the longest-serving senator, he wanted every other senator to be the best senator that he or she could be.

我在很多方面感谢鲍勃·伯德，但在我看来，今天没有人给予足够重视的一件事是，虽然他一直想成为最好的参议员，而且他一直想成为任期最长的参议员，但他希望其他每一位参议员都成为他或她可能成为的最好的参议员。

And he helped Hillary a lot when she came to represent the people of New York.

当希拉里代表纽约人民时，他给了她很多帮助。

I am forever grateful for that.

我对此永远心存感激。

Now I know this, everybody else has canonizing Senator Byrd.

现在我知道了，其他人都已经册封伯德参议员了。

I'd like to humanize him a little bit, 'cause I think it makes it more interesting and makes his service all the more important.

我想让他更加人性化一些，因为我认为这会让事情变得更有趣，也让他的服务变得更加重要。

First of all, most people had to go all the way to Washington to become awed by -- you might even say intimidated by -- Robert Byrd.

首先，大多数人必须千里迢迢来到华盛顿，才会对罗伯特·伯德感到敬畏——你甚至可以说被他吓倒。

Not me.

不是我。

I had advance experience before I got elected President.

在当选总统之前，我有丰富的经验。

'Cause the first time I ever ran for office, at the opening of campaign season in Arkansas, just below the Waccamaw and Ozark mountains, which once were connected to the Appalachians, we had this big rally.

因为我第一次竞选公职时，是在阿肯色州竞选季节开始时，就在曾经与阿巴拉契亚山脉相连的瓦卡莫山和奥扎克山下方，我们举行了这次大型集会。

And the year that I started, don't you know, Robert Byrd was the speaker.

我开始的那一年，你知道吗，演讲者是罗伯特·伯德。

1974, April, I'll never forget it.

1974年的四月，我永远不会忘记。

It was a beautiful spring night.

那是一个美丽的春夜。

And he gave one of those stem-winding speeches.

他发表了一场精彩的演讲。

And then he got up and he played the fiddle, and the crowd went crazy.

然后他站起来，拉起了小提琴，人群疯狂了。

And you know, in 1974, in a place like Arkansas or West Virginia, playing the fiddle was a whole lot better for your politics than playing a saxophone.

你知道，1974 年，在阿肯色州或西弗吉尼亚州这样的地方，演奏小提琴比演奏萨克斯管更有利于政治。

So I am completely intimidated.

所以我完全被吓到了。

And then all the candidates get to speak.

然后所有候选人都可以发言。

They're all limited to four or five minutes.

它们都被限制在四五分钟内。

Some went over.

有的就过去了。

All the candidates for governor and every state officer.

所有州长候选人和每一位州官员。

And then the members of the -- people running for the House of Representatives, there were five of us.

然后是竞选众议院议员的成员，我们有五个人。

We were dead last.

我们最后死了。

And I drew the short straw.

我抽出了那根短稻草。

I was dead last among them.

我是他们中最后一个死的。

By the time I got up to speak, it had been so long since Robert Byrd spoke, he was hungry again.

当我站起来说话时，罗伯特·伯德已经很久没有说话了，他又饿了。

And I realized, in my awed state, I couldn't do that well.

我意识到，在我敬畏的状态下，我无法做到这一点。

So I decided the only chance I had to be remembered was to give the shortest speech.

所以我决定让人们记住我的唯一机会就是发表最简短的演讲。

I spoke for 80 seconds.

我讲了80秒。

And I won the primary.

我赢得了初选。

And I owed it to Robert Byrd.

我把它归功于罗伯特·伯德。

Now, when I was elected President, I knew that one of the things I needed to do before I took the oath of office was go to the Senate and pay my respects to Senator Byrd.

现在，当我当选总统时，我知道在宣誓就职之前我需要做的事情之一就是去参议院向伯德参议员致以敬意。

In 1974, when I first met him, he had already been the leading authority on the institutional history of the Senate and the Senate rules for some years, and he certainly was by the time I was about to become President.

1974年，当我第一次见到他时，他已经是参议院制度历史和参议院规则方面的权威人物多年了，而且在我即将成为总统时，他也确实是这样。

So I did that.

所以我就这么做了。

And I got a copy of his history of the Senate , and his history of the Roman Senate .

我得到了他的元老院史和罗马元老院史的副本。

And I read them.

我读了它们。

And they're, I'm proud to say, still on my bookshelves in my office in Harlem in New York City today because I was so profoundly impressed.

我很自豪地说，今天它们仍然在我位于纽约市哈莱姆区办公室的书架上，因为给我留下了深刻的印象。

Now, Robert Byrd was not without a sense of humor.

现在，罗伯特·伯德并非没有幽默感。

For example, I was once ragging him I -- about all the federal money he was hauling down to West Virginia.

例如，我曾经因为他把联邦资金拖到西弗吉尼亚州而对他大加指责。

And it was bad for -- I mean, I was from Arkansas.

这对——我的意思是，我来自阿肯色州来说很糟糕。

We weren't much better off than you.

我们的情况并不比你好多少。

We weren't any better off than you.

我们的处境并不比你好。

And every friend I had in Arkansas said, he's just a senator.

我在阿肯色州的每个朋友都说，他只是一名参议员。

You're sitting in the White House.

你坐在白宫里。

We don't get squat compared to what they get.

与他们相比，我们并没有得到蹲下。

What is the matter with you?

你怎么了？

I was getting the living daylights beat out of me about once a week.

大约每周一次，我都会感到生活的光彩夺目。

So I said to him, early in my first term, I say, "You know, senator, if you pave every single inch of West Virginia, it's going to be much harder to mine coal." And he smiled, and he said, "The Constitution does not prohibit humble servants from delivering whatever they can to their constituents."

所以我在第一个任期之初就对他说：“参议员，你知道，如果你把西弗吉尼亚州的每一寸都铺平，开采煤炭就会变得更加困难。”他微笑着说：“宪法并不禁止卑微的仆人向选民提供他们力所能及的一切。”

And -- but let me say something seriously.

而且——但是让我严肃地说一些事情。

He knew people who were elected to represent states and regions and political philosophies.

他认识那些当选代表州、地区和政治哲学的人。

We're flesh and blood people, which means they would never be perfect.

我们是有血有肉的人，这意味着他们永远不会完美。

He knew they were subject to passion and anger.

他知道他们会受到激情和愤怒的影响。

And when you make a decision, that's important when you're mad, there's about an 80 percent chance you'll make a mistake.

当你做出决定时，这一点很重要，当你生气时，你大约有 80% 的机会会犯错误。

And that's why he thought the rules and the institution and the Constitution were so important.

这就是为什么他认为规则、制度和宪法如此重要。

And he put them before everything, even what he wanted.

他把它们放在一切之上，甚至是他想要的东西之上。

I'll never forget when we were trying to pass health care reform in 1993 and '94, Senator Byrd was a passionate supporter of the efforts we were making, just as he was of the efforts that President Obama has made.

我永远不会忘记，当我们在 1993 年和 94 年试图通过医疗改革时，伯德参议员是我们所做努力的热情支持者，就像他支持奥巴马总统所做的努力一样。

But we only had 55 votes, and we could not defeat a filibuster.

但我们只有 55 票，我们无法击败阻挠议事。

And so I said, "Well, Senator, won't you just let me stick this on the budget -- 'cause it's the only thing you can't filibuster." That violated something called the " Byrd Rule ."

所以我说，“好吧，参议员，你能不能让我把这个列入预算——因为这是你唯一不能阻挠的事情。”这违反了“伯德规则”。

They knew he was running the Senate.

他们知道他正在管理参议院。

They just go ahead and named the rule for him.

他们只是继续为他命名规则。

So the -- and -- and I said, "You know, you really ought to suspend this, because the budget is going to be bankrupt if we don't quit spending so much money on health care, and we can't do it if we offer health care to everybody." And he looked at me and he said, "That argument might have worked when you were a professor in law school.

所以我说，“你知道，你真的应该暂停这个，因为如果我们不停止在医疗保健上花费这么多钱，预算就会破产，如果我们向所有人提供医疗保健，我们就无法做到这一点。”他看着我说：“当你还是法学院的教授时，这个论点可能有效。

But you know as well as I do, it is substantively wrong." He wouldn't do it.

但你和我一样清楚，这本质上是错误的。”他不会这么做。

Then in his defense, he turned right around and he worked his heart out to break that filibuster, and he was trying till the very end not to get me to give up the fight, because he thought if we just tried, we could find some errant Republican who would make a mistake and vote with us.

然后，在他的辩护中，他转过身来，竭尽全力打破阻挠，他直到最后一刻都在努力不让我放弃战斗，因为他认为，如果我们努力，我们可以找到一些犯错误的共和党人，他们会犯错误并与我们一起投票。

He would never give it up.

他永远不会放弃。

The point I want to make is, he made a decision against his own interests, his own conviction, his own fight.

我想说的是，他做出了违背自己利益、违背自己信念、违背自己斗争的决定。

And that's one reason I thank God that he could go in his wheelchair in his most significant vote at the end of his service in the Senate and vote for health care reform and make it a real law.

这就是我感谢上帝的原因之一，因为他可以在参议院任期结束时坐在轮椅上，进行最重要的投票，投票支持医疗改革并使其成为一项真正的法律。

Now, I will say this.

现在，我要这么说。

If you want to get along with Senator Byrd, and you were having one of these constitutional differences, it was better for your long-term health if you lost the battle.

如果你想与伯德参议员和睦相处，并且你有这些宪法差异之一，那么如果你输掉这场战斗，对你的长期健康更好。

I won the battle over the line-item veto.

我赢得了关于单项否决权的斗争。

Oh, he hated the line-item veto.

哦，他讨厌单项否决权。

He hated the line-item veto with a passion that most people in West Virginia reserve for blood feuds, like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

他痛恨逐项否决权，这种热情与西弗吉尼亚州大多数人对血仇的保留一样，比如哈特菲尔德家族和麦考伊家族。

That's -- you would have thought the line-item veto had been killing members of the Byrd family for 100 years.

那是——你可能会认为单项否决权已经杀死了伯德家族的成员 100 年。

It made his blood boil.

这让他热血沸腾。

You've never been lectured by anybody -- Nick Rahall said that.

你从来没有被任何人说教过——尼克·拉霍尔这样说。

Till Bob Byrd has lectured you, you have never known a lecture.

在鲍勃·伯德给你讲课之前，你从来不知道有什么讲课。

I regret that every new President and every new member of Congress will never have the experience of being dressed down by Senator Robert Byrd.

我遗憾的是，每一位新总统、每一位新国会议员都不会有过被参议员罗伯特·伯德训斥的经历。

And I'll be darned if he wasn't right about that too -- the Supreme Court rule for him instead of me on the climb -- on the line-item veto.

如果他在这一点上也说得不对的话，那我就该死了——最高法院在攀登过程中为他而不是我做出了裁决——在单项否决权上。

All right?

好的？

The point I want to make here is a serious one.

我想在这里表达的观点是一个严肃的观点。

Yeah, he did as good a job for you as he could.

是的，他已经尽力为你做好了工作。

As he -- far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as too much for West Virginia.

对他来说——就他而言，对于西弗吉尼亚来说，没有什么是太多的。

But the one thing he would not do, even for you, is violate his sense of what was required to maintain the integrity of the Constitution and the integrity of the United States' Senate so that America could go on when we were wrong, as well as right.

但即使是为了你，他也不会做的一件事就是违反他的意识，即维护宪法的完整性和美国参议院的完整性，以便美国在我们错误和正确时都能继续前进。

So we would never be dependent on always being right.

所以我们永远不会依赖于总是正确的。

Let me just say, finally, it is common place to say that he was a self-made man, that he set an example of lifetime learning.

最后我要说的是，人们常说他是一个白手起家的人，他树立了终生学习的榜样。

He was the first, and as far as I know, maybe the only member of Congress to get a law degree while serving in the Congress.

据我所知，他是第一位，也许也是唯一一位在国会任职期间获得法律学位的国会议员。

But he did more learning than that.

但他学到的东西远不止这些。

And all you've got to do is look around this crowd today and listen to that music to remember.

您今天所要做的就是环顾这群人，聆听那些值得记住的音乐。

There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers -- and I read a bunch of them -- and they mentioned that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan.

有很多人在报纸上为伯德参议员写了这些悼词——我读了很多人——他们提到他曾经与三K党有过短暂的联系。

And what does that mean?

这意味着什么？

I'll tell what you it means.

我来告诉你这意味着什么。

He was a country boy from the hills and hollers of West Virginia.

他是一个来自西弗吉尼亚州山区和乡村的乡村男孩。

He was trying to get elected.

他正试图当选。

And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done, and he spent the rest of his life making it up.

也许他做了一些不该做的事，他用余生来弥补。

And that's what a good person does.

这就是一个好人所做的。

There are no perfect people.

没有完美的人。

There are certainly no perfect politicians.

当然不存在完美的政治家。

And so, yeah, I'm glad he got a law degree.

所以，是的，我很高兴他获得了法律学位。

But by the time he got a law degree, he already knew more than 99 percent of the lawyers in America, anyway.

但无论如何，当他获得法律学位时，他已经认识了美国 99% 以上的律师。

The degree he got in human nature and human wisdom, the understanding that came to him by serving you and serving in the Senate, that the people from the hills and hollers of West Virginia, in their patriotism, they provided a disproportionate newspaper of the soldiers who fought for our independence from England.

他对人性和人类智慧的了解程度，通过为你们服务和在参议院任职而获得的理解，来自西弗吉尼亚州山区和呼喊者的人们，以他们的爱国主义，为我们为我们从英国独立而奋斗的士兵提供了一份不成比例的报纸。

And they have provided a disproportionate number of the soldiers in every single solitary conflict since that time, whether they agreed or disagreed with the policy.

从那时起，无论他们同意还是不同意这项政策，他们在每次单独冲突中都提供了不成比例的士兵。

The family feeling, the clan loyalty, the fanatic independence,.

家庭感情，宗族忠诚，狂热的独立，。

the desire for a hand up, not a hand out, the willingness to fight when put into a corner -- that has often got the people from whom Senator Byrd and I sprang in trouble, because we didn't keep learning and growing and understanding that all the African-Americans who have been left out and left down and lived for going to church and lived to see their kids get a better deal, and have their children sign up for the military when they're needed -- they're just like we are.

渴望伸出援助之手，而不是伸出援助之手，在被逼到墙角时愿意战斗——这常常给伯德参议员和我的出身者带来麻烦，因为我们没有不断学习、成长和理解，所有被排除在外和被抛弃的非裔美国人都是为了去教堂，活着是为了看到他们的孩子得到更好的待遇，并在需要时让他们的孩子报名参军——他们就像我们一样。

That all the Irish Catholics, the Scotch Irish used to fight -- everybody -- the Italian immigrants, the people from Latin America who have come to our shores, the people from all over the world; everybody who's ever been let down and left out and ignored and abused, or who's got a terrible family story -- we're all alike.

所有的爱尔兰天主教徒、苏格兰爱尔兰人过去都曾与意大利移民、来到我们海岸的拉丁美洲人民、来自世界各地的人民作斗争；每个曾经感到失望、被忽视、被忽视和虐待的人，或者有一个可怕的家庭故事的人——我们都是一样的。

That is the real education Robert Byrd got, and he lived it every day of his life in the United States Senate to make America a better, stronger place.

这就是罗伯特·伯德所接受的真正教育，他在美国参议院的每一天都在践行这种教育，让美国变得更美好、更强大。

So not long after, maybe right before Senator Byrd lost Erma, I said in a fleeting world of instant food and attention deficit disorder, he had proved and so had she that some people really do love each other till death do them part.

所以不久之后，也许就在伯德参议员失去艾尔玛之前，我说，在一个充满速食和注意力缺陷障碍的转瞬即逝的世界里，他和她都证明了，有些人确实彼此相爱，直到死亡将他们分开。

I've been thinking about that today, thinking maybe we ought to amend the marriage vows and say that till death to us part and till death do bring us back together.

我今天一直在想这个问题，想也许我们应该修改结婚誓言，说直到死亡让我们分开，直到死亡让我们重新走到一起。

I -- I admired Senator Byrd.

我——我很钦佩伯德参议员。

I liked him.

我喜欢他。

I was grateful to him.

我很感激他。

I loved our arguments.

我喜欢我们的争论。

And I loved our common causes.

我热爱我们共同的事业。

But most of all, I loved it that he had had the wisdom to believe that America was more important than any one individual, any one President, any one senator -- that the rules, the institutions, the system had to enable us to keep forming " a more perfect union " through ups and downs and good times and bad.

但最重要的是，我喜欢他有智慧，相信美国比任何个人、任何一位总统、任何一位参议员都更重要——规则、机构、体系必须使我们能够在经历起起落落、顺境和逆境时不断形成“一个更完美的联盟”。

He has left us a precious gift.

他给我们留下了一份珍贵的礼物。

He fought a good fight.

他打了一场漂亮的仗。

He kept the faith.

他坚守了信念。

He has finished his course, but not ours.

他已经完成了他的课程，但还没有完成我们的课程。

If we really would honor him today and every day, we must remember his lessons, and live by them.

如果我们今天和每一天真的想尊敬他，我们就必须记住他的教训，并以此为生。

Book/CDs by Michael E.

Michael E. 的书籍/CD

Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008) Audio Source : WhiteHouse.gov Audio Note : AR-XE = American Rhetoric Extreme Enhancement Copyright Status : Text = Uncertain.

Eidenmuller，由 McGraw-Hill 出版 (2008) 音频来源：WhiteHouse.gov 音频注释：AR-XE = 美国修辞极端增强版权状态：文本 = 不确定。

Audio = Public domain.

音频=公共领域。

� Copyright 2001-Present.

� 版权所有 2001 年至今。

American Rhetoric.

美国修辞学。

HTML transcription by Michael E.

HTML 转录由 Michael E.

Eidenmuller.

艾登米勒。