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.
成年人之所以被稱爲成年人，是因爲他們知道分寸和底線。當吉姆•馬諦斯(Jim Mattis)去年12月辭去唐納•川普(Donald Trump)的國防部長一職時，他顯然早已經受夠了。如今，這位退役將軍（川普政府中曾經的頭號「成年人」）表示，他對自己不再服務的政府負有「保持沉默的責任」。有人將馬諦斯的緘默歸因於軍人的榮譽準則——儘管在川普提名他時，他從海軍陸戰隊退役已有兩年了。總之，他加入了一小羣體之列，這些人本可以揭川普的短，但選擇不去這樣做。