President-elect Donald Trump shocked many observers when he tapped Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education.

　　新任总统特朗普提名Betsy DeVos为教育部长，许多观察者为此感到诧异。

　　DeVos quickly accepted the nomination, which continues a trend that officials involved in previous transition teams say is concerning because, like many of Trump’s other early picks, she has no previous experience in government.

　　DeVos随即接受了提名。过渡小组官员称这着实令人担忧，因为DeVos和特朗普其他的候选人一样，都没有从政经验。

　　“When we were in the Obama transition, one of the big concerns we had that there were a lot of people coming into government who did not necessarily have federal government experience,” said Norman Eisen, a former ambassador who worked on President Barack Obama’s White House transition team in 2008. “The Trump transition has that problem on steroids.”

　　“在奥巴马政府过渡期，我们最为担忧的便是许多没有从政经验的人要进入政府工作，” Norman Eisen如此说到。他曾在2008年担任奥巴马政府过渡小组的大使。“这个问题在特朗普过渡期显得更为严重。”

　　Indeed, Trump’s roster of key White House advisers and Cabinet officials could, in the end, rank among the least experienced in recent presidential history.

　　确实，特朗普的白宫顾问和内阁官员也许是总统历史上最缺乏经验的团队。

　　Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, headed right-wing news site Breitbart News before chairing the president-elect’s campaign. Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, previously ran the Republican National Committee.

　　特朗普任命Steve Bannon为其首席策略官，他曾是极右派Breitbart媒体领袖并且担任总统竞选活动的主席。Reince Priebus出任白宫幕僚长，他曾担任共和党全国委员会主席。

　　And Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a key presidential campaign strategist who is now being discussed as a White House adviser, ran his family’s real estate business before entering politics.

　　而特朗普的女婿Jared Kushner成为白宫顾问，他曾经营家族房地产企业并是总统选战的重要策略师。

　　None of those individuals has worked in government.

　　这些人都没有从政经验。

　　In addition, Trump tapped South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) Wednesday to be his United Nations Ambassador. She has little, if any, official foreign policy experience.

　　除此之外，特朗普于周三提名南卡罗来州州长Nikki Haley为美国驻联合国大使，她几乎没有任何正式的外交经验。

　　To Trump, who pledged to “drain the swamp” of the nation’s capital, and his allies, this may be a key selling point of his picks. To Eisen, who now works at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., it points to potential problems ― both in the development of policy and in terms of simple governance, government is like any other profession ― it requires expertise.

　　特朗普宣称要“清除华盛顿淤泥，”无论是资本还是官员方面。这也许是他任命人选的关键卖点。Eisen如今任职于华盛顿布鲁金斯学会，对他来说，该卖点指明了潜在问题。即无论是政策发展还是简单的治理活动，从政无异于其他职业，专业素养不可或缺。

　　“I don’t think you’d want that gang, if they had a similar lack of expertise in surgery, operating on you with that level of comparable medical experience. And the same is true in government.”

　　“正如你拒绝没有丰富医疗经验的医生给你做手术一样，政府也是如此。”

　　While DeVos has never worked in a school or agency that dealt directly with education policy, she has served as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party and headed organizations that focus on education reform.

　　DeVos从未在任何与教育政策有关的学校或机构工作过，不过她曾是密歇根共和党主席，如今成为教育部主席，从事教育改革。

　　By contrast, Dr. Ben Carson. ― Trump’s preferred choice to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development ― has no identifiable expertise in housing policy. And he’s never served in government, let alone atop a federal agency.

　　而特朗普选择Ben Carson为住房与城市发展部的最高长官，但是他对住房政策几乎一窍不通，而且从未任职于政府部门，何况是联邦机构的领导。

　　“Unlike Betsy DeVos who at least has some experience with the issue, I think Carson’s experience with the sorts of things that HUD does is very, very top down ― to put it gently. Housing is a very complicated issue for example,” said William Galston, who was previously a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton. He now heads governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

　　“无论如何，Betsy DeVos至少还有一些经验，而Carson对住房与城市发展部了解并不深入，说的好听点就是这样。住房问题是很复杂的，” William Galston如是说到。他曾是比尔·克林顿总统的顾问，如今是布鲁金斯治理研究学的主任。

　　Galston suggested that inexperienced Cabinet appointees would likely select more seasoned deputies. He likened it to the chief executive of a company having a chief operating officer with greater knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the business’s operations.

　　Galston认为内阁成员应由经验更为丰富的人来担任。就好比一个公司的首席执行官，应该任命一位对公司业务了解深入的首席运营官。

　　Galston however, about the outsize role that Trump loyalists and family members were likely to play in the incoming administration.

　　然而，特朗普的支持者和家庭成员很可能过度干预未来政府，这引发Galston担忧。

　　Other Trump choices are raising eyebrows for reasons other than experience. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years. But Flynn was fired in 2014, in part because of concerns over his management style, which one former Pentagon official called “disruptive.”

　　人们同样惊讶于特朗普的其他选择，但并非是出于经验而担忧。比如，退役将军Mike Flynn成为国家安全顾问，曾担任国防情报局局长长达两年。不过Flynn在2014年被停职，部分原因在于他的管理风格，前五角大楼官员称其具有“分裂性质”。

　　A figure close to the Trump transition team said he’s concerned about this nomination, because being national security adviser requires a diplomatic style that appears lacking in Flynn.

　　一位与特朗普过渡团队关系密切的人称自己很担心Flynn的提名。因为作为国家安全顾问，外交风格必不可少，但Flynn并不具备这种风格。

　　Jay Lefkowitz, who advised former President George W. Bush on domestic policy and later served as the administration’s special human rights envoy to North Korea, was less concerned about the relative inexperience of Trump’s selections thus far.

　　Jay Lefkowitz曾是小布什总统的国内政策顾问，后来又任美国朝鲜人权问题特使。他对特朗普缺乏经验一事却显得不那么担心。

　　Lefkowitz noted that DeVos’ lack of federal government experience made her the ideal pick for an agency “in desperate need of reform.”

　　Lefkowitz指出， 对于一个“迫切需要改革”的机构来说，DeVos正是因为缺乏联邦政府工作经验，才成为理想人选。

　　“There is a little bit of institutional knowledge ― how things actually work.” Lefkowitz said. “There are some really good people who have been in the White House before and been on the Hill before who I hope he takes a look at.”

　　“确实有一些关于机构运作的知识。我倒是希望以前在白宫和国会山那些优秀的人能好好学一学，” Lefkowitz说到。

　　“On the other hand, one of his appeals was that he was going to break away from conventional politics and conventional bureaucrats,” Lefkowitz added.

　　他继续说到：“其次，他这些举措的另一好处在于将打破传统的政治和官僚束缚。”

　　From this perspective, having fresh faces in key posts, he concluded, is “a net positive, not a net negative.”

　　在Lefkowitz看来，推举新人担任重要职位是一项正面举措，没有负面影响。

　　But Eisen, who noted that Trump is himself inexperienced, as the first president-elect who hasn’t served either in the government or the military, isn’t convinced.

　　但是Eisen认为特朗普本身就缺乏经验，他是首位既没有政府工作经验，又没有服过兵役的总统，能力很难不受质疑。

（编辑：何莹莹）