Andrew Solomon Quotes
The Senator was one of the few Americans who knew that we were trying to develop and atomic weapon. One of the political problems was spending the huge sums of money that were necessary without the purpose becoming public. In a private meeting, President Roosevelt asked the Senator if he would help the administration hide $2 billion from public view. And that was the origin of the huge federal atomic laboratories at Oak Ridge, TN. This may have been the biggest piece of pork in American History and yet the Senator could never tell anyone that he had obtained it for his state.
This famous quotation illustrates the perfect political reply to a personal attack. In one short sentence, Lincoln denied the charge, obtained the sympathy of the audience, demonstrated that he was not stuck-up, entertained the crowd, and gave everyone there a story to tell about him afterward—the perfect oratorical response.
Andrew Solomon is a writer on politics, culture and psychology, who lives in New York City and London. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Travel and Leisure, and other publications on a range of subjects, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and deaf politics.
