The thing about grown-ups is they are supposed to say when enough is enough. Jim Mattis had obviously had enough when he resigned as Donald Trump’s secretary of defence in December. Now the retired general — and the former leading “adult” in Mr Trump’s administration — says he owes a “duty of silence” to the government in which he could no longer serve. Some attribute Mr Mattis’s coyness to the military code of honour — though he retired from the marines two years before Mr Trump picked him. Either way he joins a small army of people who could damage Mr Trump but have chosen not to.
成年人之所以被稱為成年人，是因?yàn)樗麄冎婪执绾偷拙€。當(dāng)吉姆?馬蒂斯(Jim Mattis)去年12月辭去唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的國防部長一職時(shí)，他顯然早已經(jīng)受夠了。如今，這位退役將軍（特朗普政府中曾經(jīng)的頭號(hào)“成年人”）表示，他對(duì)自己不再服務(wù)的政府負(fù)有“保持沉默的責(zé)任”。有人將馬蒂斯的緘默歸因于軍人的榮譽(yù)準(zhǔn)則——盡管在特朗普提名他時(shí)，他從海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊(duì)退役已有兩年了。總之，他加入了一小群體之列，這些人本可以揭特朗普的短，但選擇不去這樣做。