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The surrounding walls of the Red Room
are all covered in red satin. During James Madison's
presidency, his wife, Dolley Madison, held annual musical
gatherings in this particular room on Sunday
evenings | |
President Bush is not accustomed to doing things
by half-measures and if his
Christmas card list is anything to go by he is not about to start.
During the past two weeks envelopes bearing a Crawford, Texas, postmark
and a return address of the White House have been landing in mail boxes
and on doormats at two million addresses.
Two million is some address book.
This year the President's parents staged an 80th birthday party for Mr
Bush Sr billed as including "more than 5,000 of their closest friends".
Just how many of the two million are among the closest friends of the
current First Couple is unclear. The White House said simply that the
cards were going out to "friends, family and foreign dignitaries".
There are many trends and legacies for which future presidents may come
to curse Mr Bush - the ballooning budget deficit, skyrocketing medical
costs and costly and unwinnable wars. But one of the most overlooked is
Christmas card inflation.
In 2001, his first Christmas in office Mr Bush sent 875,000 cards. That
was more than double the 400,000 mailed by the Clintons, who themselves
presided over a White House that was not exactly ascetic.
A year later the Bushes broke the million mark. Why stop there? In 2003
they kept up the pace, sending 1.3 million. But they were just warming up.
By any measure, two million is a lot of cards. It is an increase of
more than 50 per cent in a year and of 400 per cent in four years.
If Mr Bush had signed all of them personally, which he did not, he
would have needed to start in late summer. This year, no doubt because of
the numbers involved, not all of the cards carry a print of the
presidential signature.
The card depicts a Matisse-like rendering of the White
House Red Room by the Texas artist Cindi Holt, and inside bears the second
verse of Psalm xcv: "Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol
Him with music and song."
This year's presidential election is responsible for the latest
increase.
The 1.4 million Republican volunteers who spent much of the year canvassing for support and turning
out Mr Bush's record vote on election day, even those in the most remote
campaign offices in the most longshot states, have all received a
card by way of a thank-you.
The cards, which are being paid for by the
Republican National Committee and which are expected to cost towards $1 million (￡520,000),
are only one part of the extraordinary extravaganza that the White
House puts on for Christmas.
(Agencies) |
美國總統布什做事向來不喜歡折衷，如果他發送圣誕卡的名單有所遺漏，他壓根就不會開始做這件事。
在過去的兩周中，帶著德克薩斯州克勞福德的郵戳和白宮回郵地址的信封已經“飛向”200萬戶人家的郵箱或門口的擦鞋墊。
200萬，這相當于一本地址簿。
今年，布什總統的雙親為老布什80歲生日舉辦了一個生日晚會，列出的賓客名單里有“5000多名他們最親近的朋友”。
真不知道這200萬人中有多少是今天這對“第一夫婦”最親近的朋友。不過據白宮稱，這些圣誕卡只是要送給總統的“朋友、親人和外國重要友人”。
將來的美國總統可能會責怪現任總統布什的許多做法和遺留問題，比如不斷膨脹的財政預算赤字，迅猛上漲的醫療費用，耗資昂貴卻不能取勝的頻繁戰爭。但是有件事也是最容易被忽略的，那就是圣誕賀卡數量的膨脹。
2001年，布什上任后的第一個圣誕節，他送出了87.5萬張賀卡，是前任總統克林頓全家寄出的40萬張卡片的一倍還多。克林頓家族所掌管的白宮其實并不特別克制簡樸。
一年后，布什一家寄出的賀卡突破了100萬大關。可為什么要原地踏步呢？2003年，他們保持了這種步伐，寄出了130萬張賀卡，但這僅僅是熱身運動而已。
不論從哪個角度來衡量，200萬張賀卡都不是一個小數。在一年里，賀卡數量的增長速度超過了50%，并在四年內漲了400%。
如果布什要親筆為所有的卡片簽名（事實上他并沒有那么做），那么他從夏末就應該開始動筆了。今年，毫無疑問的是，由于要寄的卡片的數目過巨，不是所有卡片上都印有總統的簽名。
今年的卡片圖案是一幅關于白宮紅廳的馬蒂斯風格的透視圖，由德克薩斯州藝術家辛迪·霍爾特設計制作。卡片內頁上印著圣經詩篇第95篇的第二節：“我們要來感謝他，用音樂和詩歌贊美他。”
今年的總統大選應該為最近這次賀卡數目的增長買單。
約有140萬名共和黨志愿者花了大半年時間來支持布什，為他游說拉票，使布什在大選中的得票創下歷史記錄。即使是那些曾在獲勝可能最小的州的最偏遠的競選辦公室里工作的人們，也都收到了一張寫著"感謝你"字樣的圣誕卡。
這些卡片的費用統統由共和黨全國委員會承擔，預計要花費將近100萬美元（52萬英鎊）。不過這只是白宮為迎接圣誕舉辦的諸多奢華的慶祝活動的一部分而已。
（中國日報網站譯） |
Updated: 2004-12-16 10:34