非常感谢菲教授，收益匪浅！

It was a terrible mornig to receive a lot of bad news.（乍一看我想这句翻得比我好，用了a lot of，但是第二眼看不行了，it 指代“to receive a lot of bad news”吧？你把它代回去，成了：To receive a lot of bad news was a terrible morning!）  But I knew Bill and I had to keep our daily life going.  Not knowing what to do, the staffs at the West Wing were idling（idle做动词我觉得好像不太常见）, or whisperring to their cell phone, or chatting behind doors.  It was very important to ensure（跟我用得一样，不对，ensure后面加名词或that从句: http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/ensure

意思是确保，）， the staffs at (the, 怎么每周听Meet the Press还犯这个错误？该抽！)white house that we would deal with the crisis and prepare to fight back as before.  I knew that everyone would follow me.  The best way in the our favor was to move forward steadily.  I wished I could spend more time  in (on or nothing) preparing my first exposure(不恰当，感觉Hilary要当暴露狂，咔咔。想想词根expose).  In the afternoon, I had to give a presentation about civil rights at 古彻 Institute, which was reqeusted by our old friend, Tylor.  I rushed to the Station Union（这个愚公受法语影响比较深？哈哈） and took a train to Baltimore for I did not want to dispoint the institue or Tylor.（这个放到后面坏处是和上一句衔接不好了）

My notes:

1.

I originally wrote "It was terrible  to receive a lot of bad news in a mourning.."  but I did not know why changed it to the way it's now.

Good catch, professor Fei!

- news is singular, so a lot of new...not many news
or in the original book "This was a lot ofbad news ..."

- similar case: this/that information not these/those inform

2.

carry on with daily routines
stay the course

3.

ensure - another good catch!

ensure is for things.  For people assure or reassure should be used instead.

en·sure (n-shr)
tr.v. en·sured, en·sur·ing, en·sures
To make sure or certain; insure: Our precautions ensured our safety.

re·as·sure (r-shr)
tr.v. re·as·sured, re·as·sur·ing, re·as·sures
1. To restore confidence to.
2. To assure again.
3. To reinsure.

as·sure (-shr)
tr.v. as·sured, as·sur·ing, as·sures
1. To inform positively, as to remove doubt: assured us that the train would be on time.
2. To cause to feel sure: assured her of his devotion.
3. To give confidence to; reassure.
4. To make certain; ensure: "Nothing in history assures the success of our civilization" (Herbert J. Muller).
5. To make safe or secure.
6. Chiefly British To insure, as against loss.

4. (the) White House ... what a low level "low level mistake"!

5. expore - while it sounds not as good as appearance but it also has the meaning of appearance in public.

See 1b which is different from 1d below.

ex·po·sure (k-spzhr)
n.
1. The act or an instance of exposing, as:
a. An act of subjecting or an instance of being subjected to an action or an influence: their first exposure to big city life.
b. Appearance in public or in the mass media: an actor with much recent exposure in television.
c. Revelation, especially of crime or guilt: exposure of graft in county government.
d. The act of presenting a body part, especially the genitals, to view: indecent exposure.

6.  Regarding last sentences, agree that it's better to reorganize the sentence.

7. STATION UNION

When I read 联合车站, Station Union in New York popped up in my mind. :-)