Beyond question, Clinton was supposed to close up, stay out of sight, and avoid second- guessing his wife’s boss. After his ego blustered into oncoming traffic during Hillary’s heated primary race (1) Obama, the nation suffered from yet another turn of Clinton fatigue.
(2) this week Bill Clinton showed an instinct for robust, inclusive leadership that the (3) White House occupant could make good use of right for the time being. With President Obama struggling to (4) the political damage from the Gulf oil spill, Clinton not only can’t help himself—he’s worth being listened.
The conventional-wisdom (5) on President Obama’s early reaction to the spill was (6) he didn’t emote enough. He didn’t feel the (7) of all those people in the crisis whose livelihood would be destroyed, whose clean waters and wildlife would be (8) in black gunk.
Clinton considers this is an unfair (9) but offers a different—and more pointed— lesson to his young successor. "I think we ought to (10) in the same boat for a while... Let’s just (11) the problem, and then we can hold everybody responsible and emote or not emote, " Clinton conversed (12) CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer.
Obama’s first (13) after the oil spill was to "feel the blame" rather than "feel the pain, " which are pretty sarcastic words as it were. No one intends to let British Petroleum (BP) management (14) the hook—for dangerously cutting corners, and for a (15) safety record. However, the President’s (16) focus on scolding BP consumed (17) White House energy while the oil gushed.
Great leaders don’t rush to criticise; Instead they instinctively (18) solutions. Rudy Giuliani, who didn’t stop to blame (19) intelligence for letting it happen, stood out from New York mayor with a girlfriend problem to 9/11 hero when he took control of a crisis and instilled confidence that a ravaged city could (20) beyond a terrorist attack.
4（）
A.prevent
B.expand
C.stop
D.contain
参考答案：D
解析：
[试题考点] 上下文语意关系和动词词义辨析。
[解题思路] 本题空格位于句子的伴随状语with短语部分，该句意为“就在奥巴马总统努力______墨西哥湾漏油事件造成的政治损失时，空格所填词与struggling to构成复合谓语，其逻辑主语为“美国总统奥巴马”，宾语为“政治损失”，代入四个选项，只有选项[D]contain“遏制(某事物)的蔓延或恶化”最符合文意，故选项[D]正确。
[干扰排除] 选项[A]prevent意为“阻止(某事)发生；阻止(某人)做……”，空格后的political damage已经发生，故不是“阻止”政治损失，可排除。选项[B]expand意为“扩大；放大”，不符合文意，可排除。选项[C]stop意为“停止；中止”，漏油事件已经发生，损失已经造成，不可能“中止损失”，故该选项也可排除。