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If you asked me, what's the most disappointing thing Barack Obama has done as President? I'd say, He appointed a "blue-ribbon" commission to study the federal deficit. I mean, how boring and worthy and worthless! Such commissions are an instant admission of defeat: We lack the political will to deal with (insert long-term crisis here), so we're appointing a blue-ribbon commission to study it. The process is inevitable, especially in these days of rising partisan contentiousness. A consensus won't be reached on the really tough issues. A high-minded, peripheral idea or two may emerge — frosting on a soap bubble — and then evaporate ... or worse, actually be implemented, as was the 9/11 commission's foolishly redundant suggestion of a Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), plopped atop the CIA and military spook agencies. No doubt yet another commission will eventually be appointed to study abolishing the DNI.
But what if there were a machine, a magical contraption that could take the process of making tough decisions in a democracy, shake it up, dramatize it and make it both credible and conclusive? As it happens, the ancient Athenians had one. It was called the kleroterion, and it worked something like a bingo-ball selector. Each citizen — free males only, of course — had an identity token several hundred were picked randomly every day and delegated to make major decisions for the polis. But that couldn't happen now, could it? Most of our decisions are too complicated and technical for mere civilians to make, aren't they?

A. 어휘
"blue-ribbon" 최상의, 가장 뛰어난. commission 위원회, 위임.
federal 연방(정부). deficit 적자. boring 지겨운, 구멍 뚫기.
insert 삽입하다, 끼워 넣다. crisis 危機(위기).
partisan 당파적인. contentiousness 논쟁. consensus 일치, 합의.
high-minded 고상한, 高潔(고결)한. peripheral 주변의, 末梢(말초)의.
frost 과자 따위에 설탕을 입히다, 서리가 내리다.
evaporate 증발하다. implemented 설치하다, 도구를 공급하다, 수행하다.
redundant 여분의, 불필요한.
Directorate of National Intelligence 국가정보이사회.
plopped atop ...위에 떨어지다(불필요한 機構(기구)를 위에 얹어 놓다).
spook 유령, 무시무시한 사람, 스파이, 정보국원.
abolish 폐지하다. machine 機構(기구), 기관, 조직체.
contraption 새로운 고안, 新案(신안). a democracy 민주주의국가.
kleroterion 고대 그리스의 자치기구.
selector 선택器(기), 선택자. identity token 신분증.
randomly 無作爲(무작위)로, 任意(임의)로. delegate 委任(위임)하다, 대리하다.
polis 고대 그리스의 도시국가. complicated 복잡한.