Bad blood?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Bad blood?

When together, Clinton and Obama appear cordial and cool. Senior officials insist there’s no bad blood—including over the messy 2008 Democratic primary where Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the nomination after months of her husband questioning her opponent’s experience and knack for leadership.

- Clinton Snubs Obama’s Millionaire Tax, TheDailyBeast.com, September 21, 2011.

3. On a cold and grey afternoon in Washington DC the jubilation that swept through the streets a week ago has all but gone. The screaming crowds and honking cars that engulfed the city last Tuesday night, confirming Barack Obama’s electoral victory, have been replaced by a drone of traffic and the throaty hum of Joe Frazier singing to himself in an anonymous hotel room.

“I ever told you I was a great singer?” the old fighter eventually asks. Three giant rings glitter on his gnarled fingers as Smokin’ Joe, a heavyweight crooner with the blues in his bones, looks up and whoops: “I’m still smokin’, man!”

It might also be said on bleaker days, when Frazier is alone at home in Philadelphia with only his haunted memories for company, that a mere wisp of smoke still rises from the ashes of his legacy. Frazier’s immense achievement as world heavyweight champion, at a time when boxing carried such sporting and political resonance, was torched by Muhammad Ali’s jibes and taunts.

As easy as it is to love Ali, and especially his enduring image as the bravest and funniest and most significant sportsman in living memory, he was unspeakably cruel to his bitterest rival. Demeaning Frazier as “flat-nosed” and “backward”, as a gorilla and an Uncle Tom, Ali’s banter was soured with malevolence. Having been so scorched and trashed in the past it is little wonder that Frazier’s name did not appear among the black pioneers exalted last week alongside Obama.