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“I am not a crook.” Richard Nixon resigned as president of the US 40 years ago this week, and of all the things he said in his political career this quote is the one that lives on. He did also popularise the phrase “the silent majority”, although it is seldom attributed to him. “我不是骗子。”40年前的这一周，理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)辞任美国总统，他在政治生涯发表的所有言论中，这一句流传下来。他也让“沉默的大多数”这个短语广为人知，不过人们很少提到这是他说的。 To state the obvious: we remember the first quote because it seems to us in hindsight to have been so audacious a lie. It takes its place with “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” (another US president, Bill Clinton) and the promise to “cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play”, by a man jailed after admitting perjury and perverting the course of justice (Nixon biographer Jonathan Aitken). 说一句显而易见的话：我们之所以记住前面那一句，是因为事后看来，那是一句如此大胆的谎言。可以跟这句话媲美的还有，“我没跟那个女人、莱温斯基(Lewinsky)女士发生性关系”（出自另一位美国前总统比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)），和承诺“以简单的真理之剑和英国式公平竞争的信任之盾，切除腐败扭曲的资讯业之癌”，说这话的人在承认伪证罪和妨碍司法公正罪之后被投入监狱，他就是尼克松传记的作者乔纳森•艾特肯(Jonathan Aitken)。 | 
