很多博友要求我对最近的CNN事件发表看法，于是我就去请教了国内外的几位知名美国记者。以下登载的是其中一封邮件。 

Dear Li Laoshi,
        Here are some (anonymous) comments from an American friend who understands the U.S. media:

亲爱的李老师，
    这里是一位了解美国媒体的朋友的匿名评论。

      Many of us from the U.S. have been surprised to see that the comments by CNN host Jack Cafferty have created so much criticism in China. To be honest, he is not a well-known figure in the U.S., and his comments are not influential. His job is to be provocative and opinionated, so none of us were surprised that he took a strong, potentially offensive position, in his comments. But that doesnt represent the view of CNN journalists or of the American public.

    一位CNN主持人的评论在中国引起如此强烈的批评，很多美国人都感到非常惊讶。坦率地说，他在美国不是一个名人，他的评论没有影响力。他的工作就是煽动和大放厥词！所以，我们对他采取如此极端的态度毫不惊讶。但这并不代表CNN记者和美国大众的意见。

    Most people in America know that he was making a simplistic statement not based on fact - - and nobody would have remembered it for more than one minute if it had not become a controversy. But now it has become an incident, and so it is being repeated over and over in Chinese newspapers and online.

    大多数美国人知道，他的评论不是基于事实的！如果没有成为争议，人们转头就会忘记的！但是，现在它成为了一个事件，在中国的报纸和网络上反复被播放。

    The U.S. is criticized very often in foreign media, particularly about the war in Iraq and the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, Cuba. Many of those criticisms are harsh, and many of them are correct.

    美国经常被外国媒体批评，特别是关于伊拉克战争和古巴囚犯的虐待问题。很多的批评都是非常尖锐，但很多是正确的。

    Europeans, our friends, often say they dont trust or respect American leaders. But, as a big, influential country, we are accustomed to this and we accept it. If we spend much time worrying about what individual commentators say about us, we would have no time for the really important things in life!

    欧洲人，我们的朋友们，经常说他们不信任和尊重美国的领导者。但作为一个有影响力的大国，我们习惯了这种态度，并接受它。如果我们花太多的时间去忧虑关于我们的评论，我们就没有精力去做我们应该做的事情。

    我的建议是：
    要有大国心态，要允许批评，甚至是错误的批评！
    最明智的态度就是：做好我们应该做的事情，把我们的经济搞好，我们的环境保护好，把2008年奥运会办好！