ALBION MONITOR: QUOTE OF THE DAY ARCHIVE

"There's a reason you've never heard of 'Bus Rage'"

-- Former Greyhound slogan, which was dropped after a passenger stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized a fellow traveler on a bus in Canada

"That breast, that little nipple, ends up right in the shots that TVs make during press conferences"

-- Paolo Bonaiuti, Italy government spokesman, after a reproduction of a 18th-century painting was retouched to hide the woman's nipple. The painting, "The Truth Unveiled by Time," often appears in the background at news conferences. The prime minister, Berlusconi, owns Italy's 3 largest TV stations, where full nudity is common. New York Times, August 5, 2008

"I hope the day comes when you return to your wife and your daughters and your country"

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant"

-- Barack Obama, August 5, 2008, on the McCain's campaign attempt to ridicule him for suggesting that proper tire inflation could save fuel. McCain dropped the theme after it was widely pointed out that AAA, NASCAR, and every auto owner's manual agreed with Obama. "They think it's funny that they're making fun of something that is actually true"

"They're not going to like this downtown"

-- Then-CIA Director George Tenet in February 2003, worried about the White House reaction to learning on the eve of the Iraq invasion that Saddam definitely had no WMDs. On learning that the head of Iraqi intelligence was cooperating with the British, Bush reportedly asked, "Why don't they ask him to give us something we can use to help make our case?" Quotes from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind's new book, "The Way of the World"

"People will ask where they've been and 'What have you been doing with them?' They'll all get lawyers"

-- Dick Cheney at a 2005 White House meeting, fighting the release of prisoners at Gitmo and elsewhere because it could lead to prosecution of Bush administration officials. Excerpt from Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side

"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming"

-- Texas Gov. George W. Bush acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention, August 3, 2000. "Behind every goal I've talked about tonight is a great hope for our country. A hundred years from now this must not be remembered as an age rich in possession and poor in ideals....We are now the party of ideas and innovation, the party of idealism and inclusion, the party of a simple and powerful hope. My fellow citizens, we can begin again"

"I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote"

-- A Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri, among the thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads that have been recently summoned to mandatory meetings and told that voting for Obama would be tantamount to unionizing the company. "The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" the employee told the Wall St. Journal, August 1, 2008

"We have an epidemic here. Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq"

-- Rep. Jane Harman (D-California), after visiting a VA hospital and learning that at least 2 in 5 women are sexually assaulted while in the military. CNN, July 31, 2008

"There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war... [including plans to] build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can't have Americans killing Americans"

-- Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on a meeting held in Cheney's office following the January incident in the Strait of Hormuz when Iranian speedboats approached a U.S. Navy ship. The White House believed that the incident showed there was public support for "retaliation" against Iran if attacked. Hersh remarks from a Q&A session at a journalism conference, July 9, 2008

"They don't need more money, but they are having a difficult time, apparently, spending the money that they have"

-- Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen, whose quarterly report says Iraq is supposed to contributing over $50 billion to rebuild the country, but no data is available on how much has been spent. The July 30, 2008, report says Iraqis have refused to accept U.S. transfer of hundreds of infrastructure projects

"I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet"

-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi interview with Politico, July 29, 2008, on her refusal to compromise with House Republicans on offshore oil and gas exploration

"But she's pro-choice"

-- Former DoJ White House liaison Monica Goodling, showing dismay when a job applicant stated he admired Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A July 28, 2008 Justice Dept. report charges she broke federal law by asking politicized questions, such as, "Why are you a Republican?" or "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?"

"It's not the reason why I'm running for president of the United States"

-- John McCain, at the beginning of a Olympics-class double backflip-flop. In less than ten seconds of an interview on ABC News' "This Week," July 27, 2008, McCain said that gay adoption wasn't a campaign issue, followed by, "it is important for us to emphasize family values...families that are of parents that are the traditional family," followed by, "I'm running for president of the United States because I want to help with family values"

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice. God bless America; it's been great living here. That's all"

-- Last words of Dale Leo Bishop, executed by the state of Mississippi, July 23, 2008

"Tell the governor he just lost my vote"

-- Last words of Christopher Scott Emmett, executed by the state of Virginia, July 24, 2008. Emmett's attorneys unsuccessfully asked the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the state's method of lethal injection because it appears that 1 in 7 inmates were not fully unconscious when the heart stopping drug was administered. "Y'all hurry this along, I'm dying to get out of here," he also said

"It would be natural that a large percentage of them would watch Fox. There's the sense that Fox covers the war in Iraq and the situation in Iraq in a more balanced way"

-- Rudy Giuliani, after Obama remarked that TVs at army bases in Iraq and Afghanistan were always tuned to Fox News. The only U.S. news channel available continuously on the Pentagon's satellite system is Fox News. A study also found that Fox News offered significantly less coverage of Iraq than other networks. Giuliani quote from "Fox & Friends," July 24, 2008

"Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state that is unstable. In Saudi Arabia, the fight between the ruling famliy and the clerical class has yet to play itself out. The clerical class' theological frame is essentially Osama bin Laden's ideology"

-- General John Abizaid (ret), CENTCOM commander 2003-2007, identifying key threats in the War on Terror. As for Iraq, he told the Pacific Council, July 22, 2008, "We can't be in Iraq more than the Iraqis want us to be there"

"There's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk -- that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras -- it got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up "

-- George W. Bush at a Texas fundraiser, July 18, 2008. Bush did not explain why he wanted the Houston audience to turn off cameras before he revealed his insightful economic analysis

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change"

-- Al Gore, July 16, 2008

"Here's a thing about innovation: Nobody has ever predicted the next innovation"

-- Sir Harold Evans, author of the definitive 5-volume series on newspapering, "Editing and Design," and editor of The London Sunday Times, 1967- 1981. Quote from an interview in the Independent/UK, July, 2008

"I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot"

"You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject"

-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on CNN, July 17, 2008, responding to Bush criticism of the Democratic-led Congress

"OK, listen up. Viagra is used to help a medical condition. That's why it's covered. Birth control is not a medical condition. It is a choice. Why should I or anybody else have to pay for other people's choices? Do I have to buy you dinner before you use the birth control?"

-- The indefatigable Bill O'Reilly, July 17, 2008

"I must admit, it's been difficult for me sometimes to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others"

-- John Ashcroft, making the remarkable admission that a former Attorney General of the United States cannot be trusted as a witness. House Judiciary Committee hearings, July 17, 2008

"It doesn't say naked...removal of clothing is different from naked"

-- Doug Feith at the July 15, 2008, House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on torture, defending the Rumsfeld-approved guidelines for military interrogations. "I imagine you can apply them in a humane fashion"

"I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself"

-- John McCain, telling the New York Times, July 13, 2008, that "I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need." The following day, conservative talk show host Michael Smerconish asked, "Where does he get his porn? That's what I want to know"

"It's just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there"

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter"

-- President Bush at his final meeting of the G8 summit in Japan. According to the Telegraph/UK, July 10, 2008, Bush said it while grinning and punching the air, as Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and other world leaders looked on in shock

"Their mood is that of the fatally ill patient who says 'Let's get this over with'"

-- Right-wing ideologue Richard Viguerie, saying at FreedomFest, July 11, 2008, "...some conservatives who are considering voting for Barack Obama, because they fear McCain as president would destroy what's left of the Republican brand"

"It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life"

-- S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, on news that the EPA has changed the "value of a statistical life" to $6.9 million, $1 million less than five years ago. By devaluating the "value," the Bush administration can claim statistically there is less proven harm from pollution, and thus no need for tighter regulations. AP, July 11, 2008

"Phil Gramm does not speak for me"

-- John McCain, distancing himself from his top economic adviser after Gramm was quoted as saying, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners...[suffering from only a] mental recession." At the same time that McCain was distancing himself, Gramm was meeting with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on McCain's economic policies. July 10, 2008

"I don't recall ever saying that experience as a bomber pilot equipped me to be very strong on how to run a war, how to command the armed forces"

-- Former presidential nominee and WWII hero George McGovern, Boston Globe, July 9, 2008

"I'm not out to get the telephone companies... the American people ought to know who in the White House said, 'go break the law"

-- Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont) on telcom immunity for warrentless wiretapping, July 8, 2008

"At this rate, by 2050 the world will be cooked"

"If you know anybody who was a P.O.W. for any time, they can be going on for years and all of a sudden something will happen that will trigger all those bad memories"

-- Bill Clinton on lifelong emotional problems of ex-POWs, but not naming names. Aspen Ideas Festival, July 5, 2008

"The man is Ted Baxter"

-- Rush Limbaugh, comparing Bill O'Reilly to the pompous and ignorant windbag on the old Mary Tyler Moore show. "Somebody's got to say it," Limbaugh told the New York Times, July 6, 2008

"If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap. He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel"

-- Petroleum industry consultant Roger Diwan, quoted by the New York Times, October 14, 2001. On July 3rd, oil hit a new record of $146.69 a barrel. The bin Laden quote is from a book, "Bin Laden, Al-Jazeera - And I," by Jamal Abdul Latif Ismail, which includes a transcription of a bin Laden interview from 1998, when oil averaged $11 a barrel

"Helms has been anti-black, anti-gay, anti-woman and anti-progress. He was perfectly willing to use his power for partisan nastiness and for petty provincial politics. His main claim to fame is that he protected Big Tobacco and his home-state textile industry. I have liked a lot of outspoken conservatives over the years. Helms is not one"

"It would be ridiculous to name the destructive forces one by one"

-- Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, making the customary disclaimer of a new leader of a nuclear superpower that he isn't worried about being murdered by foes. "I am not an adherent of conspiracy theories. In real life, everything is so much simpler, if not banal," he told the New York Times, July 3, 2008

"Everyone has a nice watch, a nice car. It's not enough to just have a Ferrari anymore"

-- Abdullah Al-Mannaei, who organizes the monthly auction of low-digit license plate numbers for status-seeking men in Abu Dhabi. The number "5" recently sold for $9 million, which was a bargain compared to the $14 million his cousin paid for "1." Wall St. Journal, July 1, 2008

"It's really more like a Boy Scout camp than it is a prison camp...They get up to 12-hours of exercise time a day and they have all kinds of activities. They can play ping-pong, basketball, soccer. They have their own garden. They can check out library books"

"They did a lot wrong, but they also did a few things right. I wish I had the Taliban as my soldiers"

-- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai interview with Der Spiegel, June 2, 2008. Karzai said "foreign allies" brought back Afghans that were under their control, which made it difficult for him "to find a way that can enable Afghanistan's administration to function"

"We pledged to support her to the end. Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is"

-- Rep. Charlie Rangel (NY - D), New York Times, June 5, 2008

"Who will be ready to take back the White House and take charge as commander in chief and lead our country to better tomorrows? ...on election day after Election Day, you came out in record numbers to cast your ballots. Nearly 18 million of you cast your votes for our campaign"

-- Hillary Clinton, still refusing to actually concede to Obama, June 3, 2008

"You can say those things when you're not running for re-election"

-- Dick Cheney, noting that he head had ancestors on both sides of his family named Cheney, even though "we don't even live in West Virginia." Later on June 2, 2008, he apologzied for making an incest "joke"

"Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them!"

-- President Bush in a 2004 videoconference on Iraq with his national security team and generals, as quoted by retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, in his new memoirs. Calling Bush's pep talk "confused," Sanchez writes that the president continued, "There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

"This is the stupidity of Blackberry politics. They get caught in this day to day. No one's going to care what John McCain says about the fact levels"

-- New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks on ABC's "This Week," June 1, 2008

"How in the world can we attract new business when the workforce just wants to grow or harvest pot?"

-- Ross Liberty, a Mendocino County welding shop owner seeking to repeal the county's Y2000 measure easing limits on pot growing, that now results in an annual $1.5 billion marijuana crop. "I see them driving $50,000 tricked-up trucks all over town," he told the San Francisco Chronicle, May 31, 2008, "I can't compete with that. Nobody can"

"It's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us"

-- Newt Gingrich, telling a bookstor audience, April 29, 2008, that "one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration" was that they were just too good at "intercepting and stopping bad guys." Except for the (unsolved) anthrax case, there is no evidence of any attempted domestic terror attack since 9/11

"[Hillary Clinton] is the drunk party guest who won't go home, the cab's idling out front, and she's opening a new bottle of wine"

-- MSNBC senior campaign correspondent Tucker Carlson, who also compared Sen. Clinton to a screeching cat fighting being placed inside a carrier. May 27, 2008 appearance on "Morning Joe"

"The higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives...to put on positive stories about the president"

-- Jessica Yellin, on her experience as White House correspondent at MSNBC, 2002-2003. "[T]hey would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical," she told CNN, May 28, 2008

"Being evasive is not the same as lying in Bush's mind"

-- Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is his book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." A 1999 ancedote has Bush telling him that he was at "pretty wild parties back in the day" but didn't remember whether he used cocaine or not. "I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true," McClellan wrote. "And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious - political convenience"

"The 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served"

-- Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is his book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." McClellan writes that the media shouldn't have been surprised when the excuses for invading Iraq turned out to be false. "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington"

"They had already invited O'Reilly, and they didn't want the embarrassment of uninviting him because they're scared of him. He's a thug"

-- Barry Nolan, a veteran TV news anchor who was fired by Comcast's CN8 network for protesting a local Emmy Award given to Bill O'Reilly. Nolan told ABC News, May 23, 2008. "We've been through an awful dark time in our history where there are a lot of people telling you to sit down and shut up. From Dick Cheney to Bill O'Reilly, I'm done with bullies"

"The Bush-McCain saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing. But it forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders. And it spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right from American wallets into Tehran's pockets"

-- Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) editorial in the Wall St. Journal, May 23, 2008. "Beyond bluster, how would Mr. McCain actually deal with these dangers? You either talk, you maintain the status quo, or you go to war. If Mr. McCain has ruled out talking, we're stuck with an ineffectual policy or military strikes that could quickly spiral out of control"

"By 2008, I think I might be ready to go down to the old soldiers home and await the cavalry charge there"

-- Sen. John McCain on PBS' "News Hour," August 1, 2000

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton offering an example of why she continues to seek the nomination. Clinton soon apologized for the May 23, 2008 remark, explaining that she was just using that as an example of a situation where a party presidential candidate was not chosen until June, and happened to be thinking of Sen. Ted Kennedy because of his medical diagnosis. However, she said the same thing in a March interview with Time magazine

"[You have] just a litany of complaints that you're all just hapless victims of a system, yet you rack up record profits ... quarter after quarter after quarter"

-- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) to the oil industry executives testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 21, 2008. Exxon Mobil executive J. Stephen Simon conceded that profits have been huge "in absolute terms," but claimed they need big profits "in the current up cycle" to tide them over in lean times

"There was a bucket of water. And they stick my head in it and at the same time, punch me into my stomach"

-- Former Gitmo prisoner Murat Kurnaz, revealing that U.S. interrogators used "water treatment" on him and others. The CIA maintains only 3 prisoners were "waterboarded." Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs' Oversight Subcommittee, May 20, 2008

"When the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do, that's what strong presidents do, that's what I'll do when I'm president of the United States of America"

-- Barack Obama, May 19, 2008. "What are George Bush and John McCain afraid of?"

"This has been the most slanted press coverage in American history"

-- Bill Clinton, May 19, 2008

"Books on Iraq don't sell. Over and over, when I was shopping it around, editors would say, 'Gee, it's about Iraq'"

-- CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier, on the troubles she had finding a publisher for a book on her experiences in Iraq, which included a near fatal injury in a blast that killed two of her CBS colleagues. Dozier also told the Baltimore Sun, May 12, 2008, "When we put Iraq on TV, people are changing the channel... Every chance we get, it seems like we turn away from Iraq"

"That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor"

-- GOP yuckster Mike Huckabee, as his NRA speech was interrupted by a loud noise offstage. Later on May 16, 2008, Huckabee apologized for the assassination "joke"

"What people don't understand about Appalachia is that we've heard all this 'hope' and 'change' stuff since the English kicked the Scotch-Irish out in the 1700s. We're 'hoped' out. Nothing ever changes out here"

-- Virginia Democratic strategist Dave "Mudcat" Saunders on Obama's poor showing in West Virginia. The Politico blog, May 12, 2008

"This is bullshit, this is malarkey, this is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement"

-- Sen. Joe Biden, on Bush's comments in Israel, dismissing "some people" who want to talk with enemies as "appeasers," May 15, 2008. "We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939"

" It's almost like she's the Al Sharpton of white people"

-- The unfiltered mouth of Chris Matthews, May 13, 2008

" I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal"

-- President Bush, who doesn't want "some mom whose son may have recently died" to see a picture of him on a golf course. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as - to be in solidarity as best as I can with them." Interview with The Politico blog, May 13, 2008

"Wouldn't taking his advice be a little like getting health tips from a funeral home director?"

-- Obama press secretary Bill Burton, on Karl Rove's recent nuggets of campaign advice he's offered on Fox News programs. New York Times, May 12, 2008

"I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist"

-- Leonard Simpson. a lifelong Democrat and retired W Virginia coalminer to The Financial Times, May 11, 2008. None of the Democrats interviewed by the paper at a Clinton rally said they would vote for Obama if he were the nominee, several repeating the Muslim rumor and others citing his ex-pastor as a reason

"It's a bit like dropping off a lot of orchestra instruments on the ground, and then expecting a symphony to come out of that"

-- Eric John, U.S. ambassador to Thailand, on Burma's refusal to allow outsiders to distribute emergency relief aid to cyclone victims. The junta relabeled boxes of supplies with the names of army generals. TIME, May, 9, 2008

"Our government...tells us that democracy and Islam are compatible. But Islam is less compatible with democracy than is Christianity"

-- Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), bristling at new government guidelines advising against the use of terms such as "Islamo-fascism" as offensive. Santorum seems unaware that Indonesia is both the world's largest Muslim majority country and third-largest democracy. Philadelphia Inquirer, May. 8, 2008

"It's still early"

-- Hillary Clinton, May 7, 2008, adding that Bill didn't secure the nomination in 1992 until June. But on this date in 1992, there were 14 state primaries remaining, including California. In 2008, there are only five state primaries left, and none with a large population

"We don't know enough about Senator Obama yet. We don't need an 'October Surprise,' and (the chance of) an October Surprise with Hillary is remote"

-- Harold Ickes, one of the top Clinton strategists, revealing his main argument to superdelegates as well as the ethical basement that her campaign has reached. TIME magazine blog "The Page," May 6, 2008

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that'"

-- Sister Julie McGuire, who had to tell 12 fellow nuns that they would have to get a state or federal ID with a photograph in order to vote. On April 28, the Supreme Court refused to strike down Indiana's voter ID laws. All of the nuns are 80 or older and none of them drives. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts," Sister McGuire told AP, May 6, 2008, turning the nuns away from a polling place

"Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans"

-- Hillary Clinton on ABC's "This Week" program, May 4, 2008, defending the "gas tax vacation," although no economist endorses the idea. "I'm not going to put in my lot with economists"

"When you're in national politics, it's always good to pull the Band-aid off quick, but life's messy sometimes"

-- Barack Obama on Meet the Press, May 4, 2008, on why he did not repudiate Wright completely until last week

"Presidency of a woman in a country that boasts its gunmanship is unlikely"

-- The always undelightful President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who also predicted, "We don't think Mr. Obama will be allowed to become the U.S. president." April 29, 2008 press conference

"When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country and more hopeful world because George Bush was president"

-- Dick Cheney at the Oklahoma Republican Party convention, May 2, 2008

"If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a 'Judas' for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me"

-- Joe Andrew, DNC head under Bill Clinton, who edorsed Hillary last year but now endorses Obama. "They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite," he wrote in a May 1, 2008 statement. "I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton"

"You're like me"

-- Bill O'Reilly to Hillary Clinton, April 30, 2008. "You're a more polarizing personality. You're like I am -- and I hate to say that, with all due respect. But you are"

"I think we're making good progress. I do, yes"

-- President Bush, answering an April 29, 2008 press conference questionon whether he thought we were winning the war in Afghanistan. The following day, the State Dept. released a report showing last year was the bloodiest since 2001, and admitting al-Qaeda has "reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities" and expanded "affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe"

"He said, 'We can't have acquittals, we've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions'"

-- Air Force Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor at Gitmo and now a defense witness, testifying to pressure from the Pentagon's top lawyer, April 28, 2008. Davis also told the court that top Pentagon officials made it clear that there was "strategic political value" in bringing some prisoners to trial before the Nov. elections

"Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don't think so"

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia insisting torture doesn't violated the 8th Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" on 60 Minutes, April 27, 2008. "When he's hurting you in order to get information from you, you wouldn't say he's punishing you. What is he punishing you for?"

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic principles"

-- Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaking before the National Press Club, April 28, 2008

"Is this 1955 Alabama?"

"It's obvious our economy is in a slowdown. Fortunately, we recognized the signs early and took action"

-- President Bush, April 25, 2008.

"Just this week, he spouted off again -- I can't imagine why he does this"

-- Debbie Crane, a North Carolina PR consultant who told the Wall St. Journal, April 26, 2008, that Bill Clinton was "more of a liability than an asset" to his wife's campaign. Five days before, Clinton charged that critics "played the race card on me" by criticizing his comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary, then cut off the interview saying, "I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that"

"There are African-Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can't win this, but they're hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win"

-- Rep. James Clyburn (D-South Carolina), House Majority Whip to Reuters, April 24, 2008. The same day, he told the NY Times that he thought Bill Clinton's Apr. 21 comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson was "bizarre"

"There is a sense at times that we are always joining Chris Matthews already in progress, and he has no idea when it stops and starts. My responsibility sometimes is to grab the wheel when he doesn't hold it"

-- Keith Olbermann on his co-anchor in MSNBC's political coverage. According to New York Times Magazine, April 13, 2008, sometimes during commercial breaks, Matthews boasts of having restrained himself during the prior segment. "And I reward him with a grape," Olbermann said

"I'm thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days"

-- President Bush, making a guest appearance on NBC's "Deal or No Deal" game show, April 22, 2008. As it turned out, that broadcast matched the lowest ratings in the show's history, down 27% from the season average

"The army is very good at what they do, they just have a problem with sleeping in"

-- Lt. Col. William Zemp, leading a platoon of U.S. soldiers on patrol near the town of Mahmudiya because the Iraqi platoon expected to guard the area overslept. Sheikh Amash Saray, head of the Mahmudiya local council, said that the Iraqi soldiers need more equipment and support. "I need [American forces] here until 2015," he told the New York Times, April 21, 2008

"We can calculate and poll-test our positions and tell everyone exactly what they want to hear. Or we can be the party that doesn't just focus on how to win, but why we should"

-- Barack Obama, April 22, 2008, concession speech after losing the Pennsylvania primary

"It was them [the Bush administration] saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you'"

-- Robert Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, regretting his participation as a media military analyst recruited by the Pentagon in a secret propaganda program. Participants - almost all with jobs representing defense contractors - were given access to classified materials, high level briefings, and VIP tours of Gitmo and Iraq. New York Times, April 20, 2008

"It's salty and it has butter and you don't know you're eating dirt"

-- Olwich Louis Jeune, among the many destitute Haitians now eating a mixture of mud, oil and sugar. "It makes your stomach quiet down," Jeune told the New York Times, April 18, 2008

"A lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological -- the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home"

-- John McCain on Fox News' Your World, April 16, 2008. Over 400,000 families last year had the psychological problem of losing their homes to foreclosure

"They went off the rails. That's it. They took a majority that took 16 years to build and they destroyed it"

-- Newt Gingrich, explaining the collapse of the GOP to GQ, April 16, 2008. "There was a fundamental misunderstanding about how to govern. The concept of red versus blue is a tactic, not a strategy. In the long run, in order to mobilize your base, you tend to become more intense and your positions become more vitriolic, and you drive away the independents. Then you are no longer a majority"

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq"

-- Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli leader of the right-wing Likud party, telling the newspaper Ma'ariv, , April 16, 2008, that terrorism "swung American public opinion in our favor"

"You weren't told that by the administration. Absolutely not"

-- Doug Feith, one of the Iraq war architects, insisting that the public was never misled into believing that the Iraq war would be a "cakewalk." When challenged on the whopping lie by WNYC talk show host Brian Lehrer, April 15, 2008, Feith still maintained, "the initial reaction of many of the Iraqis was to greet us as liberators"

"The rest of the military did a pretty good job"

-- John McCain, putting the best possible spin on news that 1,000+ Iraqi soldiers and policemen deserted during the recent combat in Basra. "Maybe I'm digging for the pony here," McCain added in his MSNBC appearance, April 15, 2008

"Candidates just can't do enough. They'll promise you anything. They'll give you a long list of proposals and even come around with TV crews in tow and throw back a shot and a beer"

-- Barack Obama, April 14, 2008, snarking at Clinton for tossing back Canadian whiskey and a beer in a Penn. bar. Two weeks earlier, TV crews filmed Obama at a Penn. bowling alley. "My economic plan is better than my bowling," he promised other bowlers, March 30

"Yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved"

-- President Bush to ABC News, April 11, 2008, admitting that he and other top administration officials approved specific CIA torture in 2002

"I was loyal, but I don't think that loyalty is transferable to his wife. ... You don't transfer loyalty to a dynasty"

-- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, telling the LA Times, April 12, 2008, that the Clinton camp "really ticked me off" with calls telling him that he "owed" Hillary his endorsement

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not"

-- Barack Obama, April 6, 2008. "it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations"

"This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people. Barack Obama's campaign doesn't pay workers, and I guarantee you if they don't put up some money for those street workers, those leaders will most likely take Clinton money. It won't stop him from winning Philadelphia, but he won't come out with the numbers that he needs"

-- Carol Ann Campbell, a Philadelphia ward leader and Democratic superdelegate who supports Obama, explaining that his campaign would have to hand out $400,000-500,000 in "street money" to win the Pennsylvania election. In 2004, Kerry's campaign paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Philadelphia's Democratic Party apparatus. LA Times, April 11, 2008

"Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly"

-- Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, at one of the autumn 2002 National Security Council's Principals Committee meetings where CIA torture were specifically approved. ABC News, April 9, 2008

"We are in the throes of a recession"

-- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on CNBC, April 8, 2008. "I have no regrets on any of the Federal Reserve policies that we initiated back then...our anticipations of what would happen as a consequence of those policies were off, but there's no way of avoiding that"

"We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible"

-- Gen. David Petraeus at Congressional hearings on Iraq, April 8, 2008

"I have advocated conditions-based reductions, not a timetable. War is not a linear phenomenon; it's a calculus, not arithmetic"

-- Gen. David Petraeus at Congressional hearings on Iraq, April 8, 2008. Petraeus said nothing at the hearings about milestones that were established last year and have been missed. Lacking data on such important variables makes any equation unsolvable

"The Chinese have made sure that for a few hours, Paris will look like Tiananmen Square"

-- Robert Menard, head of Reporters Without Borders, on efforts by French police to protect the Olympic torch relay from disruption. BBC, April 7, 2008

"The paranoia of Nixon, the ethics of Harding and the good sense of Herbert Hoover... God willing, this will go down as the nadir of American politics"

-- One of the 109 professional historians surveyed by George Mason University in March, 2008, on the Bush presidency, where 98% said it was a failure and 61% believe it is the worst in the nation's history. Another historian surveyed remarked, "[Bush's] denial of any personal responsibility can only be described as silly"

"Laura Bush intimidates me. All the Bushes -- well, most of the Bush men marry incredibly strong women, and they all intimidate me. Barbara Bush I've lived in fear of for 37 years"

-- Karl Rove GQ interview, April 2, 2008

"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals"

-- Former media mogul Ted Turner looking "30 or 40 years" into the future. PBS interview, April 1, 2008

"I have to ask why... the firefighters who went there and everyone in the City of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus, quite frankly, this being primarily a state consideration"

-- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), calling for an end to funding for emergency responders who became ill after working at Ground Zero. The victims weren't sickened by a dirty bomb or chemical weapon, Issa continued, April 1, 2008, "It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building"

"The problem with moral authority [is] people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely"

-- Doug Feith, who views asking questions about torture a greater threat to America's moral authority than violations of the Geneva Conventions. Vanity Fair, May 2008 issue

"When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem, it's a catastrophe"

-- Colin Powell, announcing the founding of America's Promise Alliance, a drop-out prevention group, March 31, 2008

"I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today, and it's a very favorable one indeed"

-- Richard Mellon Scaife, publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the billionaire who funded "the Arkansas Project" in the 1990s to smear the Clintons. Among the rumors spread by Scaife's group was that Hillary ordered Vincent Foster murdered. Scaife quoted in the New York Times March 31, 2008, the day hell froze over

"It's like one of those movies where you think you know the end, but then you watch with your fingers over your eyes"

-- A "leading Democrat" on the Hillary Clinton campaign quoted in the Maureen Dowd column, March 23, 2008. "It's impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up. Unless every circuit is out, she'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama's wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams"

"We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn't a crime"

-- Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who isn't bringing charges against Limbaugh for encouraging listeners to vote for Clinton and disrupt the presidential primary. Columbus Dispatch March 28, 2008

"I thought it would be tough, but I didn't think it would be this tough"

-- Condoleezza Rice on Iraq, March 27, 2008

"[General Odierno] said he flew over Baghdad 15 months ago and he couldn't see a single soccer game. On his final flight last month, he counted more than 180. It is a sign normalcy is returning back to Iraq"

-- President Bush, March 27, 2008. The same day 2 U.S. soldiers were gunned down in Baghdad, another was killed by an IED, one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines was blown up in the first attack since 2004, combat raged in Basra, Kut, and Baghdad, where Iraqi forces were reported surrendering to the Mahdi Army as U.S. embassy workers were ordered to "remain under hard cover"

"We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground"

-- John McCain, March 24, 2008, the same day that four U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad. Over the following three days, at least 62 Iraqis were killed and over 300 wounded just in combat between government forces and Shiite militias. "In a minute, in a second, just like that... we can fall into hell again," Iraq parliament member and Green Zone resident Mithal Alusi told TIME the same day as McCain's quote

"Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else"

-- Senator Hillary Clinton, excusing herself for falsely claiming that she faced danger in a 1996 visit to Bosnia. "for the first time in 12 or so years, I misspoke," she added. March 25, 2008, KDKA Pittsburgh radio interview

"America has been the best country on earth for black folks"

-- Pat Buchanan, doing his part to sustain the cliche of old, white men being utterly clueless on race. "It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known," he wrote in his syndicated March 21, 2008 column. "[Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah] Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American"

"If they don't have anything to hide, then why are they making foreign journalists leave?"

-- Vincent Brossel, who heads Reporters Without Borders' Asia desk, on China expelling the last two foreign reporters from Tibet . "It's clear that they don't want any witnesses," he told AP, March 21, 2008

"Let me tell you: we've had better conversations"

-- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on his phone call to Hillary Clinton to inform her that he would be endorsing Obama for president. "Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Clinton adviser James Carville told the New York Times, March 22, 2008

"The American people have input every four years and that's the way our system is set up"

-- White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, asserting that the American people have no say in the Iraq war because they reelected George W. Bush in 2004. Press briefing, March 20, 2008

"He might have pulled off something that seemed almost impossible: He not only ventured into the minefield of race and made it back alive, but he also marked a path for the rest of us to follow"

-- Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson on the Obama speech on race, March 19, 2008

"So?"

-- Dick Cheney's response to news that 2 out of 3 Americans say the Iraq war is not worth fighting. The monosyllabic Dick also replied "no" when asked if he cared what the American people think. ABC's Good Morning America interview, March 19, 2008

"They would do anything to win, and that means anything. There is a frenetic energy around them to commandeer this election in any way they can"

-- David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, to politico.com, March 17, 2008. "She is the ultimate Washington inside player. She is always asking, 'How do we wire the vote? How do we wire the system to get the results we want?'"

"We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies. We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time'"

-- Barack Obama, March 18, 2008

"The most pressing question on investors' minds: who's next?"

-- Jeffrey Rosenberg, head of credit strategy at Bank of America Securities. Financial Times, March 16, 2008

"The United States is on top of the situation"

-- President Bush, assuring the nation, March 17, 2008, that his administration knows what it's doing in the economic crisis

"I don't know. You're going to have to ask the experts that. I'm just a simple president"

-- George W. Bush, Harvard MBA, uncertain if an increased oil supply would bring down petroleum prices. PBS interview, March 12, 2008

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger"

-- President Bush in a March 13, 2008 videoconference with U.S. military and civilian personnel serving in Afghanistan. "I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"

-- Dick Cheney on the upcoming invasion of Iraq, March 16, 2003

"Anyone who had the misfortune of watching it will know how hard it is to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan"

-- John McCain on the Senate's failure to pass his moratorium on pork-barrel spending. Springfield, Pennsylvania campaign appearance, March 14, 2008

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf"

-- Retiring Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who chaired the NRCC for 4 years. Washington Post, March 13, 2008

"I think when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they'll recognize tax cuts work. They have made a difference"

-- President Bush to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, March 12, 2008. The same day, a survey of economists agreed that the U.S. economy had ground to a halt and was probably in recession. The next day, gold passeed $1,000 an ounce for the first time and the dollar hit a 12 year low against the Yen

"The best job I ever had in preparation for running for office was a job I had sliming fish"

-- Hillary Clinton campaigning in Cheyenne Wyoming, March 7, 2008

"She's going to lose a whole generation of people who got involved in politics believing it could be something different"

-- Bill Bradley, former senator and Obama supporter, accusing the Clintons of ruthless campaign tactics. "The bigger the lie, the better the chance they think they've got. That's been their whole approach," he told the London Sunday Times, March 9, 2008

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position"

-- Geraldine Ferraro, Clinton advisor and 1984 VP candidate, complaining to the dailybreeze.com, March 7, 2008, that the "sexist" media has been "uniquely hard on her." When critics called for Hillary to denounce or reject the comment, Ferraro dug in deeper by saying on Mar. 11, "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

"If I'm not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?"

-- Barack Obama, March 10, 2008. "With all due respect, I've won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I've won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So, I don't know how somebody who's in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who's in first place"

"I don't know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around"

-- David Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland on Hillary Clinton's foreign policy experience claim, "I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland." Trimble told the Telegraph/UK March 8, 2008, "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on... being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player"

"Please keep running those 3:00AM ads about who you want to answer the phone, because we like those"

-- Randy Scheunemann, foreign policy advisor to McCain, March 7, 2008

"I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president"

-- Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, March 6, 2008, oddly comparing the special prosecutor who probed Bill's sexual peccadilloes to Obama's demand that Hillary release her tax returns. In 2000, Wolfson attacked Hillary's senate race opponent for delaying release of his taxes for 3 months

"It's a bad thing to do. But not everything that is bad is unconstitutional"

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on torture. University of Central Missouri, March 4, 2008

"If Hillary ekes out close wins, stays alive, gains the nomination and the White House, will Rush hold the Bible at her Inauguration?"

-- Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, March 4, 2008. Limbaugh told listeners to vote for Clinton in the primaries to "sustain this soap opera," and Clinton won the Texas primary by about 98,000 votes. According to the exit polls, about 618,000 Hillary voters were conservatives

"I'd be interested to know how is this any different from the series of complaints that you've registered against every caucus that you lose"

-- Obama campaign lawyer Bob Bauer, confronting Clinton's campaign communications director as he was charging Texas caucus irregularities in a conference call to reporters. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told ABC News that it was a sign that the Obama campaign is distraught. "They are unhinged. Seriously." March 4, 2008

"I'm not making a 'read my lips' statement, in that I will not raise taxes. But I'm not saying I can envision a scenario where I would, OK?"

-- John McCain, envisionary. The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2008

"We've had a 'red phone' moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer"

-- Barack Obama, February 29, 2008, on the controversial Clinton "red phone at 3AM" ad. The ad was designed by Roy Spense, and is virtually identical to an ad he designed for Walter Mondale in 1984

"This is a positive ad. Very soft images"

-- Mark Penn, chief strategist for Hillary Clinton, on their controversial "red phone at 3AM" ad. When a reporter compared it to the infamous LBJ "daisy" commercial with a nuclear war theme, Penn said, "It poses a question to people -- who do they want to pick up the phone? Let them make their own judgment. This is a spot that puts [the question] in the hands of voters." February 29, 2008

"It can hire fit and competent people"

-- Jeffrey Fisher, attorney for the Alaskans seeking damages from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, after Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts asked, "what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" The audience laughed at his answer; Roberts did not. February 27, 2008

"That's interesting, I hadn't heard that"

-- President Bush, expressing surprise over a reporter's comment that fuel prices are approaching $4/gallon. A few minutes later, Bush ducked a question by saying, "I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices." The average cost of diesel fuel in the Washington D.C. area was $3.69 on the day of the February 28, 2008 press conference

"It's very hard to criticize Senator Obama without being accused of playing the race card"

-- Lanny Davis, who frequently appears as a TV commentator supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton, on MSNBC, February 27, 2008. In 2006, Davis wrote a Wall St Journal op/ed charging that many Democrats opposed to Sen. Joe Lieberman were anti-semitic bigots

"She has essentially presented herself as co-president during the Clinton years. Every good thing that happened she says she was a part of, and so the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense"

-- Barack Obama, February 24, 2008

"If I may, I'd like to retract 'I'll lose'"

-- John McCain, February 25, 2008, after he told reporters that if he can't convince Americans that the troop surge is working, "then I lose. I lose"

"[Obama's] riding a wave of euphoria. She needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear"

-- New York Times columnist Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday, February 24, 2008

"It's a largely unscientific hoax. And it's a political concoction"

-- Mary Matalin, Republican consultant and former advisor to Fred Thompson explaining that McCain is out of step with conservatives because he believes the scientific consensus on global warming. CNN, February 20, 2008

"It's almost as if they went to a camp where these black geniuses got together and figured out how to beat the political system"

-- Geraldo Rivera on Senator Barack Obama and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. "Let's reference the civil rights movement, let's talk about change, it's almost formulaic," Rivera said on Fox News' Fox & Friends, February 22, 2008

"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit"

-- Bill O'Reilly on the Radio Factor, February 20, 2008. O'Reilly invoked lynching the wife of a black Presidential candidate after she told supporters, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change." O'Reilly's executive producer later made matters worse by insisting that he was defending Mrs. Obama

"If you want to call it 'significant undercounting,' I guess that's a euphemism for fraud"

-- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on NYC primary results that initially gave Obama no votes at all in 78 election districts. Recounts in the Harlem 94th district changed from a 141-0 Clinton victory to 261-136. NY Post, February 20, 2008

"You don't want to pile up money"

-- Mark Dybul, White House global AIDS coordinator, explaining why Bush is contributing $500 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, although Congress had approved $841 million. Bush is currently in Africa and touting his good works in fighting AIDS and malaria. Washington Post, February 18, 2008

"Hillary is a candidate; Obama is a movement"

-- Bob Gardner, a veteran political ad man and Republican who has worked for Gerald Ford and Dick Cheney. San Francisco Chronicle, February 14, 2008

"I think it's funny"

-- Ann Coulter, explaining why she referred to Barack Obama as "B. Hussein Obama" or "President Hussein" five times in two minutes on Hannity & Colmes, February 14, 2008. Contest: Can you think of a "funny" middle name for Ann Coulter?

"As a minimum, a state official must at least have a head"

-- Russian President Putin, responding to the comment from Senator Clinton that he "has no soul" because of his career in the KGB. New York Times, February 15, 2008

"It is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological"

-- Senator Joe Lieberman in praise of waterboarding, February 14, 2008

"When I was here, I didn't take any courses at all on international law, and frankly I don't think I missed a thing"

-- Former UN ambassador John Bolton to Yale law students, February 14, 2008. A poll of ambassadors released a day earlier found 97% said Bolton undermined UN reforms

"The feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech, my, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often"

-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews during coverage of the February 12, 2008 presidential primaries. A few minutes later, network anchor Brian Williams quipped, "Let's talk about that feeling Chris gets up his leg when Obama talks ... That seems to be the headline of this half hour"

"Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution? It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game. How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, unclear on the whole "slippery slope" thing. BBC interview, February 12, 2008

"Terrorists kill people. Weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill an enormous amount of people, [but] global warming in the long term has the potential to kill everybody"

-- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reporters after his address to the UN General Assembly, February 11, 2008

"Everybody was telling him, 'You're crazy, don't do this.' You get the chills. He's really unafraid to take the hits if he thinks he's doing the right thing"

-- Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, February 10, 2008, revealing that 4 out of 5 of Bush advisors opposed the Iraq troop 'surge.' In his national address last January, Bush promised the nation that "Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan ...[and] report that this plan can work"

"I have nothing else to do"

-- Mike Huckabee, on why he hasn't dropped out of the race. He also told reporters, February 9, 2008, he wasn't concerned that it was statistically impossible for him to win the nomination. "I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles," said Huckabee, a Baptist minister

"The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it's fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He's not Bambi, he's bulletproof"

-- Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, February 8, 2008. "The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell"

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror"

-- Mitt Romney, February 7, 2008. Search results for "uniter" on the Romney campaign website: 0

"This is the first time we've covered her for a long time"

-- CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, defending his upcoming program on Britney Spears. Cooper was promoting his show on "Larry King Live," February 6, 2008, when guest Michael Moore interrupted to comment, "it would be less sad if we just left her alone. Why don't we just leave her alone and let her go on with her life?" Cooper further claimed "we haven't been following it much," although his show had broadcast a Spears segment just five days before

"We hope and pray every night to run against Hillary Clinton"

-- Ari Fleischer on CNN, February 5, 2008

"When I was the age of a lot of the young people in this audience, in 1968, I supported Robert Kennedy for president. And a lot of people said, a lot of people on the other side, they say, 'Oh, but the other guy was against the Vietnam war longer, and he's better, and we like him better, he gives us a better feeling.' And I said, 'Robert Kennedy cares about people like the people I grew up with. He cares about people without regard to race. He cares about people nobody is fighting for'"

-- Bill Clinton, staking his own claim to the magic of Camelot, February 4, 2008. Awkwardly, Clinton made his remarks on the eve of the California primary, which was when RFK was assassinated 40 years ago

"Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women... White women are a problem, that's, you know -- we all live with that"

-- NY Times columnist Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday, February 3, 2008. "For the record, I like white women," volunteered Fox News anchor Brit Hume

"I always get asked the God questions"

-- Mike Huckabee, sulky Baptist minister, who followed by telling the MTV audience that his religion "helps me to understand what is right." February 3, 2008

"If you've got a Hillary and McCain race, you've got a third option: That's the pistol on the bed table"

-- The irrepressible Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, February 2, 2008

"I'm confident I'll get her votes if I win the nomination. It's not clear that she would get the votes I'd get if she wins it. And that's a fundamental difference"

-- Barack Obama, February 1, 2008

"I mean, which of your kids do you like best?"

-- Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, refusing to answer Senate questions about prioritizing between Afghanistan or Iraq, January 31, 2008

"Rudy didn't even care enough about conservatives to lie to us"

-- GOP consultant Nelson Warfield on Giuliani. New York Times, January 30, 2008

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal"

-- The National Organization for Women's New York chapter on Senator Ted Kennedy's endorsement of "Hillary Clinton's opponent." The January 28, 2008 press release also denounced Howard Dean and his brother Jim, "Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women's money, say they'll do feminist and women's rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America's future or whatever"

"How do you separate the sheep from the wool? There's no fingerprints, no DNA. You don't know if you have Osama bin Laden or Joe Shit the rag-man"

-- A former senior intelligence official who helped set up the CIA's interrogation program, admitting U.S. interrogators are still in the dark about the background and information of most prisoners. Washington Independent, January 28, 2008

"They may not have existed. But simply saying 'we didn't find them so therefore they didn't exist' is a bit of an overreach"

-- Mike Huckabee, man of faith to a fault. Fox News Sunday, January 27, 2008

"Over the years, I've been deeply moved by the people who've told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president"

-- Caroline Kennedy, NY Times op/ed, January 27, 2008. "That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama"

"The Clintons are in the process of doing the impossible: making the 2008 election a referendum on them, rather than on the Republicans"

-- The Economist editorial, January 24, 2008. "If what ought to be a stroll in the park in November becomes a real fight, then the Democrats will know who to blame"

"I don't need to go back and live in the White House. I've done that"

-- Hillary Clinton, vowing in a January 25, 2008 South Carolina campaign speech to be America's first nomadic president

"I know you think it's crazy, but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight"

-- Bill Clinton, January 22, 2008, failing to note his tag-team role in the attacks on Obama. The same day, John Edwards told reporters, "While Senator Clinton and Senator Obama were hurling charges and countercharges at each other, I was thinking, 'I'm John Edwards and I represent the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party'"

"Hey buddy! How's it going? What's happening? You got some bling bling here"

-- Mitt Romney to an African-American child, January 21, 2008. According to Fox News, Romney held up a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Florida when he "jumped off the Mitt Mobile to greet a waiting crowd, took a picture with some kids and young adults and awkwardly quipped, 'Who let the dogs out? Who who'"

"I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes"

-- Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton at the January 21, 2008 debate complaining, to loud applause, about the recent attacks on him by Bill Clinton

"I want to ride a pace car. Will you let me ride a pace car? Do I need a license for that?"

-- Rudy Giuliani, begging NASCAR officials to let him drive a car at the Daytona International Speedway, January 18, 2008. "One time. Boys, one time. We're all little boys, don't you know that?" They finally agreed to let his bus circle the track once while he sat in a passenger seat

"It's historically preposterous. It is ridiculous. The majority of military bases in this country are named after Confederate officers: Eisenhower, Nimitz. The list of southerners in our military is legion. That is what it stands for"

-- Ann Coulter, insisting that there's nothing controversial about the Confederate flag on Hannity & Colmes, January 18, 2008. President Eisenhower was born in 1890 and Admiral Nimitz was born in 1885

"Because I'm like, an ordinary person, I thought that they meant 'what's your biggest weakness?' So I said, 'Well, I don't handle paper that well. You know, my desk is a mess. I need somebody to help me file and stuff all the time.' So the other two they say uh, they say well my biggest weakness is 'I'm just too passionate about helping poor people. I am just too impatient to bring about change in America'"

-- Barack Obama, joking January 17, 2008 that he shouldn't have taken the debate question about 'your biggest weakness' so literally. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. I could have said, 'Well you know, I like to help old ladies across the street'"

"We may parse it legally, [but] they are not in Europe or Canada or Great Britain. They call it for what it is, torture"

-- Former JAG lawyer, Lieutenant Commander (Ret.) Charles Swift, on Canada placing the U.S. on its watch list of countries where prisoners could be tortured. MSNBC's Countdown, January 17, 2008

"I don't have lobbyists running my campaign"

-- Mitt Romney, who has three registered lobbyists on his senior staff. Romney later bickered with an AP reporter over what the word "running" meant. January 17, 2008

"If millions of people are trying to sneak into the U.S., we don't exactly have an image problem overseas"

-- Newt Gingrich, unclear either on the location of Mexico or the oceans. Fox News, January 15, 2008

"What we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards"

-- Mike Huckabee at a Michigan campaign stop, January 14, 2008

"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent"

-- President Bush, seeming to offer a manifesto for Mideast peace, January 10, 2008. In the same speech, however, Bush indicated that "current realities" don't include closing or shrinking "authorized" Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and a White House spokesman said the president didn't mean that Israel should pull out of East Jerusalem or Golan Heights

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture"

-- Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, who nonetheless refused to admit waterboarding is torture. New Yorker interview, January 13, 2008

"We treat these problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together"

-- Sen. Clinton at a Mexican restaurant, finalist for the oddest campaign analogy by comparing subprime mortgage loans and foreclosures to appetizers. Clinton also qualified for offering the strangest non-sequitir, as a man told her that his wife was an illegal immigrant and the Senator responded, "No woman is illegal." Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 11, 2008

"It's one group where going back to the past really works. All you need to say in focus groups is 'Let's go back to the nineties'"

-- Sergio Bendixen, Clinton campaign pollster specializing in the Hispanic vote, explaining in the January 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker that Clinton was counting on Latino voters to be her 'firewall' in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries. "The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates"

"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool"

-- A "Clinton adviser" quoted by the Guardian/UK, January 10, 2008

"To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when the FBI says the warrant is in the mail -- but not when they say the check is in the mail"

-- Michael German, the ACLU's national security policy counsel and a former FBI agent, on telco companies shutting down over half of the FBI wiretaps because the Bureau didn't pay their phone bills. AP, January 10, 2008.

"The reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it"

-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews, January 9, 2008. "She didn't win there on her merits. She won because everybody felt, 'My God, this woman stood up under humiliation,' right? That's what happened. That's how it happened"

"Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice"

-- Hillary Clinton at January 8, 2008 New Hampshire primary victory celebration. "It's the tears. She pretended to cry. The women felt sorry for her, and she won," charged neo-con NY Times columnist Bill Kristol on Fox News

"I can't make her younger, taller, [or] male. There's lots of things I can't do"

-- Bill Clinton at a January 7, 2008 campaign stop in New Hampshire. "If you want a president and need one, she would be, by far, the best." At another appearance Jan. 4, he whipped the voters into a yawn by repeatedly assuring them "Hillary's got good plans"

"I find the manner in which they've been running their campaign sort of depressing, lately. It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying 'don't feed the American people false hopes. Get a reality check, you know?' I mean, you can picture JFK saying, 'we can't go to the moon, it's a false hope. Let's get a reality check'"

-- Barack Obama "Good Morning America" interview, January 7, 2008

"Don't turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys"

-- Mitt Romney at the January 5, 2008 GOP debate. "Well, they are," shot back Sen. McCain. Romney blames the health care crisis entirely on the uninsured; McCain pointed out the widespread Medicare fraud by the industry and denounced "the power of the pharmaceutical companies" for blocking importation of drugs from Canada

"Nobody would be happier to see all this go away than us. But you can't ask somebody who is at a breathtaking disadvantage in the information coming to the voters to ignore that disadvantage and basically agree to put bullets in their brains"

-- Bill Clinton, apparently blaming the media for Hillary's negative campaigning to a woman who asked if it wasn't time to "change the game" and end the "meanness" in politics. "Nobody would like it better than us if you could get that personal vilification out of there, because nobody's been vilified more than we have," he told a University of New Hampshire/Durham forum, January 4, 2008

"None of this worries me - September 11, there were times I was worried"

-- Rudy Giuliani, telling the NY Daily News, January 4, 2008, that he's not concerned about his sixth place showing in the Iowa caucuses. Current Google hits for "Giuliani 9/11 tourette's syndrome": about 12,100

"This feels good. It's just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher"

-- Barack Obama on his Iowa caucus victory, also taking a jab at the Clinton campaign's attempts to discredit him for being overly ambitious since childhood. January 4, 2008

"I haven't decided on my second choice, but I'm definitely not going to vote for Hillary"

-- Iowa caucus participant Patty Ryan quoted by the Des Moines Register, January 3, 2008

"On the campaign trail, nobody's going to be able, if they've been campaigning as hard as we have been, to keep up with every single thing, from what happened to Britney last night to who won 'Dancing with the Stars'"

-- Mike Huckabee, forgiving himself for recent foreign policy gaffes, including ignorance of the NIE report on Iran. He was, however, able to offer same-day opinions on Britney Spears' 16 year-old sister's pregnancy. Quote from Quad-City Times, December 31, 2007

"My mother always said democracy is the best revenge"

-- Bilawal Zardari, son of the late Benazir Bhutto. The 19 year-old student was named symbolic leader of her political party. AP, December 30, 2007

"We will run only ads that talk about why I should be president, and not why Mitt Romney should not"

-- Mike Huckabee, calling a press conference to show the negative campaign ad he wouldn't show. December 31, 2007

"Nowadays, it's all about fire in the belly. I'm not sure in the world we live in today it's a terribly good thing that a president has too much fire in his belly"

-- Fred Thompson, apparently willing to consider the presidency if it's not too much trouble and if we ask nicely. "I'm not particularly interested in running for president," he also told an Iowa town hall meeting, December 29, 2007

"It's gone. The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition -- social conservatives, defense conservatives, anti-tax conservatives -- it doesn't mean a whole lot to people anymore"

-- Ed Rollins, former Reagan campaign director and now chairman of Huckabee's national campaign. The NY Times, December 30, 2007, also quoted Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one of the most influential Republicans in the country. "My fantasy out of this race is that Huckabee will create another Christian Coalition," he said

"I know it's very, very difficult, but we continue to work. I think it always has significance, but honestly it's how the media to a large degree portrays winners and losers and expectations and comeback kids and all that. So I would ask you: How am I doing?"

-- Sen. John McCain, breathless in Iowa, CNN December 26, 2007. Two days later, he told reporters, "I've been declared dead in this campaign on five or six occasions. I won't refer to a recent movie I saw, but I think I am legend"

"Just wanted u to know if it does in addition to the names in my letter to Musharaf of Oct 16nth, I wld hold Musharaf responsible. I have been made to feel insecure by his minions and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me ... cld happen without him"

-- Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto e-mail to her U.S. spokesman Mark Siegel, sent about two months before her assassination. "She basically asked for all that was required for someone of the standing of a former prime minister," Siegel told CNN, December 26, 2007. "All of that was denied to her ... She got some police protection, but it was sporadic and erratic"

"See, that's what happens if you get in my way"

-- GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, joking about the pheasants he had killed in an Iowa hunting photo-op, December 26, 2007. Huckabee also wisecracked that he and his fellow hunters were thinking of the pheasants as competing candidates. "It gives us a real incentive"

"Of course, we'd like to see Guantanamo closed. There's only one problem: What are you going to do with the bad people who are there...release them again on an unsuspecting population? I don't think so"

-- Condoleezza Rice, December 20, 2007 BBC interview. Fewer than 1% of the 305 "bad people" currently held have been actually charged with any crime

"Were not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism. Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business"

-- Rep. Ron Paul on Meet the Press, December 23, 2007. "We have more corporatism and more abuse of our civil liberties, more loss of our privacy, national ID cards, all this stuff coming has a fascist tone to it. And the country's moving in that direction"

"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described"

-- Mitt Romney, 2007 winner of the "What The Meaning Of 'Is' Is" award. Romney has repeatedly claimed that he watched his father, Michigan's Governor George Romney, march with Martin Luther King Jr. and has claimed on at least one occasion that he himself was a participant in a 1963 march. A search of the MLK archives found that neither Romney participated. "I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort," Mitt told the Boston Globe, December 21, 2007

"If a tape is not safe in the CIA, in the office of the Director of the CIA, we're in trouble"

-- John Radsan, former CIA Assistant General Counsel, telling the House Judiciary Committee, December 20, 2007, that he doesn't buy the CIA's excuse that the torture tapes had to be destroyed . "It doesn't make sense to me that the tapes needed to be destroyed to protect identities...the CIA protects a lot of classified information. If you have tapes in an overseas location, then have the tapes moved back to headquarters"

"It's what I do during my presidency. I go around spreading good will"

-- President Bush, December 20, 2007 press conference. A recent global poll found a negative view of U.S. influence by nearly a 2:1 margin

"There's not much that entices about the job. There's no money in it, no privacy, no big houses, and from an ego standpoint, it does nothing for me"

-- Supreme Ct. Justice Clarence Thomas, suffering through his lifetime sinecure as one of the most powerful individuals in the world. "I like sports," Thomas said. "I like to drive a motor home." Orange County Register, December 18, 2007

"After 10 full years inside the GOP, 90 days among honest criminals wasn't really any great ordeal"

-- Allen Raymond, who ran the 2002 New Hampshire state Republican party phone-jamming operation to sabotage Democratic party get-out-the-vote efforts. Quote from Raymond's book, "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative"

"They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world"

"We have fabulous health care in America...compare it with other systems around the world"

-- President Bush, December 17, 2007. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. health system ranks 37th, just ahead of Slovenia

"We're in Constitutional crisis because of the arrogant view of some in this administration that they can decide what the policy is, write the legal opinions to justify that policy and be accountable to no one"

-- Rep. Jane Harman (D-California), Chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence, on the destroyed CIA tapes. "And by the way, when we're talking about leadership, it is the White House that believes the Constitution starts with Article II, the power of the executive. It ignores Article I, the Congress, and Article III, the courts. We have a system of checks and balances and it's broken." Fox News Sunday, December 16, 2007

"We seek your leadership, but if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way"

"When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running? In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run"

-- Bill Clinton, taking swipes at Sen. Barack Obama on PBS, December 14, 2007. "When I was 20 points down, they all thought I was a wonderful guy. Obviously things have changed," Obama responded the next day

"Our main focus, militarily, in the region and in the world right now is rightly and firmly in Iraq. It is simply a matter of resources, of capacity. In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must"

-- Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, on the priorities and state of the U.S. military. House Armed Services Committee testimony, December 11, 2007

"Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well"

-- Sen. Barack Obama at the December 13, 2007 presidential debate, asked about former members of the Clinton administration advising him on foreign policy. Obama's comeback was directed at Hillary after she interrupted his answer with a laugh and remark, "I want to hear that"

"I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far"

-- GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, ducking a question about Mike Huckabee's comment, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Although a central tenet of LDS theology indeed holds that Jesus was Lucifer's older brother, Romney further evaded comment on NBC's "Today" show, December 12, 2007, by helpfully adding, "Actually, we prefer the name 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'"

"Each one of these had to have the approval of the deputy director for operations. The cable traffic back and forth was extremely specific, and the bottom line was these were very unusual authorities that the agency got after 9/11. No one wanted to mess them up. No one wanted to get in trouble by going overboard. So it was extremely deliberate"

-- Retired CIA officer John Kiriakou on the use of "extreme interrorgation." ABC News, December 10, 2007.

"The strategy is to lay low and then blame them for not getting anything done"

-- Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) on GOP bipartisanship. "The truth is, we all lose. We trash each other and end up making the institution look bad," LaHood told AP, December 7, 2007. "That's why Congress' approval ratings are so low"

"Did they obstruct our inquiry? The answer is clearly yes. Whether that amounts to a crime, others will have to judge"

-- Lee Hamilton, former co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, on the CIA's destruction of waterboarding videotapes. "The CIA certainly knew of our interest in getting all the information we could on the detainees, and they never indicated to us there were any videotapes," he told the NY Times, December 7, 2007

"We are a nation of laws, not of men. This nation was founded in rejection of the royalist principles that 'l'etat c'est moi' and 'The King can do no wrong.' Our Attorney General swears an oath to defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States; we are not some banana republic in which the officials all have to kowtow to the 'supreme leader'"

-- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D - Rhode Island) remarks to the Senate, December 7, 2007, regarding highly classified secret legal opinions from the Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel that give the president unlimited power of surveillance, as well as making any presidential executive order enforceable law

"I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It's a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we've cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on"

-- Former Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett on the White House's use of right-wing blogs. Quote from Texas Monthly interview, December 5, 2007

"When W.'s history is written, he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father's three most cherished spots - diplomacy, intelligence and the Gulf"

-- NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, December 5, 2007

"If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent Presidents in modern American history"

-- Sen. Joe Biden on Bush's claim that he wasn't told until last week that Iran dropped its nuclear weapons program in 2003

"It wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public...nobody ever told me"

"I'm older than Frankenstein and have a few scars"

-- Sen. John McCain, muffing his standard joke, "I'm older than dirt and got more scars than Frankenstein," at a December 3, 2007 MTV/MySpace forum

"I want a long term relationship. I don't want to just have a one night stand with all of you"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton, early front-runner in the competition for the Most Cringeworthy Statement by a Presidential Candidate. Quoted by ABC News to a crowd in Iowa, December 3, 2007

"I don't care about his personal life - it's not shocking to me that he wanted to visit his girlfriend. The part that's disturbing to me is that my organization or any government organization could be used to conceal from the public how their money was being spent "

-- Brendan Sexton, chair of the New York City Procurement Policy Board in 2000, when then-Mayor Giuliani took almost $30,000 from the agency budget to pay for security during his trysts in the Hamptions. "He didn't want anybody to know what he was doing. That's the truth," Sexton told the NY Post, December 2, 2007

"What is outraging about this case is that it is being used against the Saudi government and people "

-- Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, explaining to reporters, November 27, 2007, that the Kingdom is being victimized by criticism of its punishment for the "Girl of Qatif." The young woman who was gang-raped by 7 men was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man not related to her

"If the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the State of Israel is finished "

-- Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, BBC, November 29, 2007

"I own a couple of guns, but I'm not going to tell you what they are or where they are"

-- GOP presidential hopeful Fred Thompson at the November 28, 2007 debate, a bit too eager to work in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" answer somewhere

"Shortly after the Vietnam War ended, [North Vietnamese] Colonel Tu and [U.S. Army Col. Harry] Summers met, and they were talking about this. And our -- and the American colonel said, 'You know, we never lost one battle.' And Colonel Tu, the Vietnamese says, 'Yes, but that's irrelevant'"

-- Rep. Ron Paul at the November 28, 2007 GOP debate, answering McCain and Thompson calling for "victory" in Iraq. McCain also compared the occupation of Iraq to fighting Hitler in WWII

"Mr. President, we should move from the podium so they will see us shaking hands"

-- Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, overheard on an open microphone, suggesting that the photo-op with Bush and Abbas might look ever so much better if the audience could see what the three men were vigorously doing with their hands in front of Bush's waist. November 27, 2007

"Senator Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it"

-- Sen. Barack Obama on ABC's Nightline, November 26, 2007

"This is not Dave Petraeus' war. This is George Bush's war"

-- A senior official at the Pentagon, distancing the U.S. military from Iraq war policy. LA Times, November 26, 2007

"I thought, 'Oh my goodness, Hamas won?'"

-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, caught unawares as Hamas won an easy victory in last year's elections. Rice told the NY Times, November 26, 2007, she heard the news from a TV news crawl as she was exercising

"America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It's absurd. It's embarrassing"

-- GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee on CNN, November 25, 2007. "Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we're paying so that the Saudis get rich, filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas that train the terrorists"

"When will politicians realize that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual?"

-- Derek Clark, British Member of the European Parliament, November 21, 2007. Clark was objecting to proposed questions on an EU census that would have asked women about their history of "consensual unions." The European Commission claimed they were seeking only data about "unmarried partnerships," and not sexual activity

"It was almost like a reflex mode. I actually remember saying to myself, 'If I was a person really deciding who should be president right now, I'd probably vote for Nixon, because I think the country would be safer with Nixon'"

-- Rudy Giuliani, clearly explaining why he voted for McGovern in 1972. Weekly Standard, November 26, 2007

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself"

-- Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, directly implicating Bush in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. From an excerpt of McClellan's book released by his publisher, November 20, 2007

"TV made him a hero, and we'll use TV to take him down"

-- New York Fire Chief Jim Riches, leader of the firefighters and 9/11 family members currently in New Hampshire to publicize Giuliani's "egregious" use of 9/11 for political gain. ABC News, November 17, 2007

"Now all these people who have built these $300,000, $400,000 homes [find out they] should be higher?"

-- Tommy Do, a homeowner in the New Orleans neighborhood of Lakeview, on learning that the drainage improvements made by the Army Corps of Engineers will only protect against 6 inches of flooding, not 5.5 feet. AP, November 17, 2007

"The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country"

-- U.S. attorney Rachel Paulose, winning the grand championship for victimhood by claiming 5 (or is it 7?) persecutions from her co-workers, the media, and apparently lots of others. Paulose was reassigned to Washington three days later. National Review Online, November 16, 2007

"I was just forced to watch an MSNBC segment on going green by shopping at farmers markets. We need Fox back, stat"

-- A "clearly anguished Senate GOP aide" during a Fox News outage on Capitol Hill cable. Roll Call, November 12, 2007

"It's just absolutely amazing to me that there's actually an open discussion in the United States of America about what kind of torture will be tolerated "

-- John Edwards, November 15, 2007 presidential candidate debate

"Go to Revelations in the Bible and look at the prediction for the end of the world. It's fascinating, because it does involve the Middle East, and it does involve the clash of cultures... This was written, what? Five thousand years ago? "

-- Bill O'Reilly on The Radio Factor, November 13, 2007, unclear on the concept of this New Testament-thing

"People said to me afterwards, 'Governor, you'll do that for Keith Richards, but you wouldn't do that for an ordinary person.' And my answer to that is always, 'Hey, if you can play guitar like Keith Richards, I'll consider pardoning you, too'"

-- Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who tells the story of why he pardoned Richards and Ron Wood last year for a 1975 reckless driving conviction using a "surprisingly dead-on Pirates of the Caribbean-esque impersonation." Also while governor, Huckabee oversaw the execution of 15 convicts who presumably did not play guitar like Keith Richards, and thus weren't pardonworthy. Quote from Rolling Stone, November 14, 2007

"This extremely public kind of controversy certainly isn't of much help in winning contracts"

-- Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, on the news that the FBI found Blackwater's September killing of 14 Iraqi civilians was unjustified. Blackwater is bidding for up to $15 billion in new contracts from the Pentagon's Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Program. Quote from the Wall St. Journal, November 13, 2007

"You people are really nuts. There's kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now - there's better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn't get a tip"

-- Anita Esterday, a waitress who said she did not see Clinton personally leave a tip after staffers had lunch at the Iowa diner Nov. 8. Clinton's campaign responded quickly that there was a $100 tip left on a $157 check, but within two days, over 25,000 Google hits could be found on the "controversy." Quote from NY Times, November 9, 2007

"They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran...It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran's not involved, it's a let down"

-- Micah Brose, a privately contracted interrogator working for American forces in Iraq, who told The Guardian/UK, November 11, 2007 that he has to follow a list where 60-70% of the questions are about Iran. A military intelligence official also told the newspaper, "The message is, 'Got to find a link with Iran, got to find a link with Iran.' It's sickening"

"We just don't have any idea how this is going to unfold"

-- A senior Bush administration official conceding they fear Pakistan could lose control over its nuclear arsenal of up to 115 bombs. NY Times, November 11, 2007

"How could this e-mail possibly have been sent? These journalists have sparked a major, major incident"

-- An official from Israel's Foreign Ministry on the snafu caused by a group of Israeli journalists who used babelfish.com to translate a list of questions sent to the Dutch Foreign Ministry. The website translated "Dome of the Rock" into "bandages of the knitted domes," and garbled several passages to insult the foreign minister's mother, including, "The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian." The journalist's visit was cancelled. Jerusalem Post, November 6, 2007

"We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous"

-- Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on a study that found vets now represent 1 in 4 homeless in the United States. AP, November 7, 2007

"I don't know if they go in crazy, but they all come out crazy. All of them"

-- NY Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, insisting that he has no intention of following in his father's footsteps and becoming executive editor. Rosenthal insisted to Radar magazine, November 2, 2007, that he wasn't joking and his father was "vastly" crazier at the end of his tenure

"If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you'd be saying: God, I love freedom"

-- President Bush, insisting "freedom's happening" in Iraq. November 7, 2007

"While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies"

-- House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D - California) to Yahoo executives testifying that they didn't know China would imprison a journalist for ten years after Yahoo turned over information about his online activities requested by Chinese authorities. November 6, 2007

"Here's a woman of great accomplishment with a Master's degree in international conflict resolution, and I hope that you're going to talk about more than a tongue stud"

-- Dennis Kucinich to CBS Early Show anchor Hannah Storm, after she pressed Elizabeth Kucinich on details about her decade-old piercing. Storm persevered: "would you remove it if you became first lady or leave it in?" November 6, 2007

"The bloggers are talkers, commentators, not reporters. The talk-show hosts are reactors, commentators, not reporters. The search engines can search but do not report. All of them, every single one of them, have to have the news in order to exist and thrive"

-- PBS' Jim Lehrer, telling career journalists to "calm down, please" at the University of Texas, November 5, 2007.

"Thank heavens for small favors. Iraq looks pretty good"

"There are still people who believe that the earth is flat. But when you're reporting on a story like the one you're covering today, where you have people all around the world, you don't search out for someone who still believes the earth is flat and give them equal time"

-- Al Gore on media inviting opposing opinions from global warming deniers. Today Show, November 5, 2007

"We tried to hide the cousin thing. Everybody has a black sheep in the family. The crazy uncle in the attic"

-- Sen. Barack Obama on being distantly related to Dick Cheney. November 3, 2007

"What does he have to show for his presidency? He is the President of the United States already talking about his library. What is he going to have in the library? A tax cut for the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of the middle class and a war without end that is a total failure?"

-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, November 1, 2007.

"Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists"

-- Rumsfeld April 2006 memo, after several retired generals called for his resignation. A selection of the 20-60 "snowflakes" that he wrote daily published by the Washington Post, November 1, 2007, also urged staffers to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" in support of the war

"The president and I saw Katrina as an opportunity to open a debate on race and poverty. Anti-government Republicans saw Katrina as an opportunity to cut off medicine to old people. It confirmed the worst image of Republicans as the party of shriveled hearts"

-- Former Bush senior adviser Michael Gerson in his book, "Heroic Conservatism." Gerson writes he often fought losing battles with Cheney's office over proposals to help the poor, sick, or incarcerated. Washington Post, October 31, 2007

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment"

-- Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces, at an October 31, 2007 "town hall meeting" of State Dept. diplomats upset by the new policy requiring them to serve in Iraq. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded? You know that at any other [country] in the world, the embassy would be closed at this point," Crotty said to loud and sustained applause

"Rudy Giuliani is probably the most underqualified person since George Bush to run for president. He can only say 3 things in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11"

-- Senator Joseph Biden at the October 30, 2007 Democratic candidates debate

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about [Bush's] mental health. There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact"

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board, October 30, 2007. "There's a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn't something wrong with him, then there's something wrong with us"

"I believe that most countries are not taking this issue too seriously, including, unfortunately, Great Britain"

-- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who told the BBC October 29, 2007, that Britain failed to act on information provided by the Saudis that might have averted London's 2005 suicide attack. The same day, a new analysis found that 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia

"Both papers uncovered dishwashers, cooks and other suspect Hillary campaign contributors in New York's Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx, and Brooklyn who were limited-income, limited-English-proficient and smellier than stinky tofu"

-- Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin on recent stories in the LA Times and NY Post on contributions from Asian-Americans. The October 24, 2007 column by Asian-American Malkin finished, "If it's 'ethnic profiling' to be extra-careful of Chinatown donors who can't speak English, live in dilapidated buildings, have never voted, can't tell Hillary Clinton from Hunan Chicken or simply can't be found, then 'ethnic profiling' should be the standard procedure of every responsible campaign"

"They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly. That's silly"

-- Rudy Giuliani on torture at an October 24, 2007 town hall in Davenport, Iowa. Ten years ago, the UN ruled that sleep deprivation was torture and before 2003, the State Dept. explicitly described it as torture and condemned 12 nations, including Iraq, for using it. Giuliani also told Iowans that he wasn't sure waterboarding was torture, either. "It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it"

"I appreciate him being here, but they could have organized this better. I'd just as soon eat"

-- Danny Chandler, one of the firefighters in San Diego County who had been fighting blazes for 24 hours, but was kept from the showers and food tent by Bush's visit. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush's fly-ins similarly delayed rescue and relief missions repeatedly. Quote from the San Diego Union-Tribune, October 26, 2007

"I'm a prominent conservative but no one is inviting me to speak at their campuses. I had to create an event"

-- David Horowitz on efforts to stir interest in his "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." Horowitz interview in George Washington University student newspaper The Hatchet, October 25, 2007

"I took a city that was known for pornography and licked it to a large extent, so I have my own set of qualifications"

-- Rudy Giuliani on the campaign trail. NY Daily News, October 24, 2007. Also popular in the blogs is columnist Jimmy Breslin's old description of Giuliani as "a small man in search of a balcony"

"You know, torture is the method of choice of the lazy, the stupid and the pseudo-tough. And that should not be the United States"

-- Former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, Rear Admiral John Hutson (ret) remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee, October 18, 2007. "Other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, water-boarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It was devised, I believe, in the Spanish Inquisition. It has been repudiated for centuries. It's a little disconcerting to hear now that we're not quite sure where water-boarding fits in the scheme of things"

"I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today"

-- CNN's Glenn Beck on the October 22, 2007 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program. The Santa Ana fire is the greatest national disaster in America since Hurricane Katrina, with about one million people evacuated

"I don't know what [Bush] knew or when he knew it, but it was clear...that there was a conspiracy by a multitude of people within the White House to undermine and discredit Joe Wilson. And I was just sort of collateral damage"

-- Valerie Plame interview on the "Today Show, October 22, 2007. Plame also said that a Sept. 1 2006 Washington Post editorial blaming her husband, Ambassador Wilson, for the end of her career, "was like reading Pravda"

"Thompson's tendency to look down and read his remarks provided the audience with some of the most prolonged views of the top of a bald politician's head in recent history. When you feel compelled to use an index card for lines like, 'We must have good laws. We must do our best to stop bad laws,' you have been spending too much of your life filming 30-second bits of dialogue"

-- New York Times columnist Gail Collins on Fred Thompson's dismal showing at the October 20, 2007 "Values Voter Summit"

"All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"

-- 1962 Nobel Prize winner and 2007 racist James Watson, explaining to the London Sunday Times Magazine October 14, 2007, why he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa." Watson also said he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true"

"You don't have money to fund the war or children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement"

-- Rep. Pete Stark (D-California) on House Republicans who refused to join the effort to override of Bush's SCHIP veto. October 18, 2007

"I want to make sure - and that's why, when I tell you I'm going to sprint to the finish, and finish this job strong, that's one way to ensure that I am relevant; that's one way to sure that I am in the process. And I intend to use the veto"

-- President Bush, explaining why a children's health insurance program is really all about him. October 17, 2007 press conference

"The truth is, I'm okay with it. Now, I don't want to be invited to the family hunting party"

-- Sen. Barack Obama on being distantly related to Dick Cheney. October 17, 2007 Tonight show appearance

"We found out who was writing it and made a couple phone calls to the person writing it. And we said, 'You know what? We're going to find out where your kids go to school. We're going to find out who you knocked up in high school. We're going to find out what drugs you used. We're going to find out where you go to drink and do -- we're gonna find out how you paid for your house. We're going to do -- and we're going to do exact -- and we're going to say that, you know what? You are no different than [former publisher of Screw magazine] Al Goldstein. You both masturbate'"

-- Rush Limbaugh broadcast of October 15, 2007, describing how he intimidated a reporter who was writing "a cover story on me coming out of one of the big news magazines." Limbaugh boasted that he "changed the tone of the story by about 60 percent, I would say, from what it was going to be"

"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that"

-- Former CENTCOM head General John Abizaid (Ret), at a Stanford conference, October 13, 2007

"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work"

-- Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, a high-ranking Vatican priest who was secretly filmed putting the moves on a young man by reporters from Italy's "La7" TV network as part of a program on gay priests. Stenico was quoted by AP, October 14, 2007, as telling an Italian newspaper that he's not gay and was only gathering info about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity"

"It's just stunning to me that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won't use his veto, [Bush and the GOP leadership] choose their big showdown to be over children's health care"

-- A veteran Republican strategist to Roll Call, October 11, 2007. " Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!"

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight"

-- Former top commander in Iraq General Ricardo Sanchez, October 12, 2007 remarks to a convention of military journalists. "From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration's latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize the political, economic and military power," Sanchez said, adding that military strategy alone will only "stave off defeat"

"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching. Now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us"

-- A professional woman who watched the protesters from her Rangoon office. Independent/UK, October 11, 2007

"Minorities don't become elderly, the way white people do. They die first"

-- John Tanner, chief of the Justice Dept. Civil Rights Divisions' voting rights section, explaining why a Georgia law requiring voters to have photo ID mostly discriminates against elderly whites because they often don't have photo IDs. A day earlier, Tanner said it was a mistake to assume that the poor lack photo IDs. "When someone goes to a check cashing business God help them if they don't have a photo ID," he said. Quotes from a panel on voter disenfranchisement held by the National Latino Congreso in Los Angelest, October 5, 2007 and the Oct. 4 annual meeting of Georgia's NAACP

"Oh shit, he's dumb as hell. Fred Thompson. Who is he? He won't say anything"

-- Nixon in a May 1973 recording on the young Senate lawyer who represented Republicans on the Watergate committee. In a June 6 chat with White House counsel Fred Buzhardt, Nixon say of Thompson, "He isn't very smart, is he?" Buzhardt answered, "Not extremely so, but --" Nixon interrupted, "But he's friendly"

"I hope you get elected, cause it will make Rush Limbaugh really, really mad"

-- A voter in Maquoketa, Iowa to Hillary Clinton, October 7, 2007

"There will be no reconciliation as such. To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power"

-- Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, Washington Post, October 8, 2007. Political reconciliation was, of course, Bush's justification for the troop "surge"

"With [Blackwater] drivers honking at, cutting off, pelting with water bottles (a favorite tactic) and menacing with weapons anyone in their way, how many enemies were we creating?"

-- Janessa Gans, a U.S. official in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, on the behavior of Blackwater convoys that chauffeured her around Iraq. In her October 6, 2007 LA Times op/ed, Gans described her outrage as she watched a Blackwater vehicle push an "old, puttering sedan driven by an older man with a young woman and three children" into a barricade because the car was unable to get out of the way on a narrow road. "'Where do you all expect them to go?' I shrieked. 'It was an old guy and a family, for goodness' sake. Was it necessary for them to destroy their poor old car?'"

"You know, and there are times that you just want to dash your brains out against the wall because, I mean, he's actually, he's a very funny guy"

-- Former White House press secretary Tony Snow, decrying that the world never gets the chance to see the real George W. Bush. October 4, 2007 appearance on The Dave Letterman Show

"The Administration can't have it both ways. I'm tired of these games. They can't say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program"

"We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer -- it is a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach"

-- Sen. Barack Obama, October 4, 2007. "Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it. It's time to tell the world that America rejects torture without exception or equivocation. It's time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows"

"It was hard to read these e-mails and not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater's enabler"

-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) at a October 2, 2007 House Oversight hearing. After a drunken Blackwater contractor shot and killed the guard of the Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24 last year, the State Dept. advised the company on how much to pay the slain man's family, then aided Blackwater with flying the shooter out of the country just 36 hours after the shooting. "If this had happened in the United States, the contractor would have been arrested and a criminal investigation launched," said Waxman. "If a drunken U.S. soldier had killed an Iraqi guard, the soldier would've faced a court martial. But all that has happened to the Blackwater contractor is that he has lost his job"

"We have sure moved away from the day when we called them Krauts and Nips"

-- Ann Coulter, remarking that the U.S. is at war and shouldn't be offended by her remarks calling all Arabs "camel jockeys" because "they killed 3,000 Americans." Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, October 1, 2007

"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas. And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment"

-- Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff to AP, October 1, 2007. The day before, the Washington Post reported that the EPA's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped by 70 percent under the Bush administration

"First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it's a good idea. I'm happy that the President's willing to do something bad for the kids"

-- The dark humor of Bill Kristol, on Bush's vow to veto extend health coverage for 4 million uninsured children. Fox News Sunday, September 30, 2007

"Quite honestly, since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane, we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other"

-- Rudy Giulilani, explaining to the Christian Broadcasting Network, September 28, 2007, why he interrupts major speeches to take cell phone calls from his wife. Giuliani neglected to tell the Christian audience, however, that on 9/11 he was married to someone else and having an affair with the woman who's now calling to check up on him

"It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade. I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure"

"If you get into the business of committing U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq, to occupy the place, my guess is I'd probably still have people there today instead of having been able to bring them home...The bottom line question for me was: How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? The answer: not very damn many"

-- Defense Secretary Richard Cheney to the Economic Club of Detroit, September 14, 1992

"These Republicans are all upset about Petraeus? This is one newspaper ad. These are the people that ran a television ad in Georgia with Max Cleland, who lost half his body in Vietnam, in the same ad with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. That's what the Republicans did. And the person that rode to the Senate on that ad [Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia] was there, voting to condemn the Democrats over the Petraeus ad"

-- President Clinton on the GOP's "feigned outrage" over the MoveOn.org "General Betray Us" ad. Clinton also said on CNN, September 26, 2007, "these are the people that funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but they're really upset about Petraeus. But it was OK to question John Kerry's patriotism"

"This is a nightmare. We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib"

-- A senior U.S. military official on the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater emplotees Sept. 16. Washington Post, September 25, 2007

"We haven't had one hearing on this. I'm on the Foreign Relations Committee, I'm on the Armed Services Committee. We are about to vote on something that may fundamentally change the way the United States views the Iranian military and we haven't had one hearing. This is not the way to make foreign policy. It's not the way to declare war"

"We don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. We don't have this phenomenon I don't know who's told you we have it"

"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship"

-- Bill O'Reilly, on The Radio Factor, September 19, 2007, astonished by his experience at a Harlem restaurant. "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all"

"[Mukasey] is going into a zoo at the Justice Department. It is chaos -- he has no idea what to do there. They have vacancies there, staff. You need someone who knows where the bodies are buried, like Ted Olson"

-- Bob Novak, always in search of excellence. Bloomberg TV, September 20, 2007

"Journalism is trying to get at the truth, trying to separate bull shine from brass tacks. And the brass tacks were in that story. The story was true"

-- Dan Rather on the Bush/Texas Air National Guard story that ended his career at CBS News. Rather also told Larry King, September 20, 2007, "Nobody has proved that they were fraudulent, much less a forgery, which they're often described that way. The facts of the story, the truth of the story stands up to this day"

"You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President's motorcade pulls into the Capitol and Darth Vader emerges"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton at a September 19, 2007 New York City fundraiser

"One, I'm too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me"

-- President Bush, explaining why he just can't personally volunteer for Iraq duty. Bush made the comment to a group of 8 conservative bloggers invited to a White House sitdown, September 14, 2007, according to participant "NZ"

"There's been real changes. In Ramadi, that has been one of worst places in Iraq, it is now one of the less bad places in Iraq"

-- American Enterprise Institute Fellow David Frum, straining, straining, to say something good about the surge on CNN's Reliable Sources, September 16, 2007

"I've been there before...I shouldn't have said the 'god' before the damn"

-- Sally Field, whose speech at the September 16, 2007 Emmy Awards was censored by Fox. Field was trying to say, "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no god-damned wars in the first place," but Fox cut the sound after, "no g-"

"If you don't want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just don't write any"

-- Dick Cheney at the Gerald R. Ford Museum, September 14, 2007. "I'm told researchers like to come and dig through my files, to see if anything interesting turns up. I want to wish them luck, but the files are pretty thin"

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil"

-- Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in his memoir, "The Age of Turbulence"

"The argument that I've heard [Keith] Olbermann make in the past about Fox News -- it's not an argument that I embrace -- is that because it poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation and is, is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it's misinforming our society. But you know what? They're entitled to do that"

-- Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, defending the right of ersatz news operations to dangerously misinform the public. September 12, 2007 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck

"They don't really want [democracy]. In my opinion, they just don't. They want their meals. They want to smoke. They want to go to the mosques. They want to sit around, and that's what they want to do. Do they want to vote? Do they want to get involved? Not really"

-- Bill O'Reilly on The Radio Factor, September 10, 2007. That same evening on his TV show, O'Reilly told viewers that he thought American troops should stay in Iraq for another a year, although "the USA is likely to lose another thousand killed in the process"

"It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists"

-- Colin Powell in GQ interview, September 10, 2007

"[Petraeus is] an ass-kissing little chickenshit...I hate people like that"

"We have now set the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation, to the point where now we just have the levels of intolerable violence that existed in June of 2006 is considered success, and it's not"

-- Sen. Barack Obama at September 11, 2007 Congressional hearings on the Iraq war. Obama also objected to the timing of the testimony: "I think we should not have had this discussion on 9/11, or 9/10, or 9/12, because I think it perpetuates the notion that the original decision to go into Iraq was directly related to the attacks on 9/11"

"In Afghanistan, 28 million people are free. They have their own president, they have their own parliament. Improved a lot on the streets...It's been a big success!"

-- Donald Rumsfeld in GQ interview, September 10, 2007, ignoring that Afghanistan has just produced another record-setting opium crop and that NATO has conceded entire districts in the southern part of the country to the Taliban. As for his other war front, Rummy told GQ, "The Iraqi government has not been successful as yet. And, uh, it's gonna take some time and some effort"

"The likelihood is that it doesn't become a regional war, but there's a roughly 30-40% chance that it'll spread. During the Cold War, we spent trillions worrying about infinitesimally small risks. 30-40% chance of a real, honest-to-goodness catastrophe is something that ought to factor into our policymaking now"

-- Stephen Biddle/ Council on Foreign Relations, on the risks that Iraq could become a battleground for surrounding countries to fight proxy wars once the U.S. withdraws. The New Yorker, September 17, 2007 issue

"They said, 'You gotta quit smoking'"

-- Fred Thompson, explaining why he thinks Iraqis aren't siding with al-Qaeda. "I don't know what that was about," said Jim Moran, who attended the Iowa town hall where Thompson made the comment. NY Daily News, September 8, 2007

"When people say bad things are going to happen if we leave, bad things have already happened. Where were you for the last four years?"

-- Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria on claims that U.S. forces must stay in Iraq to prevent genocide. "One of the dirty little secrets about Iraq is that Iraq has increasingly been ethnically cleansed. It's sad to say, but the American Army has presided over the largest ethnic cleansing in the world since the Balkans," he said on ABC's World News, September 5, 2007

"If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal"

-- A senior intelligence official in Washington, detailing the new rules used by the Bush administration to claim a reduction of Iraqi sectarian violence. Washington Post, September 6, 2007

"The plural of anecdotes is not data"

-- Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the Iraq status report being prepared by the White House. "Progress is not being made," Pelosi said September 5, 2007, no matter how some "cherry pick" stories of success

"Not much surprises me anymore. I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to make room for a new outrage"

-- Al Gore, fearing that "I'm losing my objectivity where President Bush and Cheney are concerned." Harvard alumni magazine "02138" Sept/Oct 2007 issue

"America does not abandon its friends. America will not abandon the Iraqi people"

-- President Bush, September 3, 2007. Bush's father also famously promised to not abandon the Iraqi people if they would "rise up against the dictator, Saddam Hussein" in 1991 after the Gulf War. Bush I withdrew U.S. support when Hussein began massacring his Shiite opponents, despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of American troops stationed just miles away from the killings

"But this is my favorite television show"

-- Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who refused to stop watching children's cartoons during a Green Zone briefing for U.S. members of Congress. Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nevada) told the Washington Post, August 31, 2007, that it was "annoying" that the high-ranking official couldn't be distracted from watching the large flat-panel TV provided in the meeting room. "I don't disagree it was an odd moment, but I did take a deep breath and say, 'Wait a minute, at least they are using the latest technology, and they are monitoring the world"

"To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaeda would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave"

-- Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nevada) on his recent visit to Iraq and what he was told there by Gen. Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and top ranking Iraqi government officials. Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 30, 2007

"We are asking more and more of our families than I would ever have thought possible"

-- U. S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, August 26, 2007. Casey told AP he would not be comfortable extending troops beyond their 15-month deployments, but other military officials anonymously said that option is on the table

"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust"

-- President Bush, always the cassandra of mushroom clouds for nations he doesn't like. August 28, 2007

"I'm 60 years old, my wife's 29. Draw your own conclusions. Diet helps"

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich exposing his vegetarianism at a candidate's health forum in Iowa, August 27, 2007

"What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It's black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they're in trouble"

-- Rush Limbaugh explaining to a caller, August 22, 2007, why genocide doesn't matter. "Could you tell me what vital national interest is at stake in Darfur? Nothing. Zilch, zero, nada. Darfur is not attacking us. Darfur has not said they want to attack us"

"Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things"

"I come from an environment where people talk 9-10 months, and there he was, talking 9-10 years"

-- Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois), shocked after visiting Iraq and receiving a briefing where General Petraeus said progress has been made, but it would take a decade to stabilize the country. Petraeus also told her, "If you don't like the humanitarian crisis, the refugees and the internally displaced people, you can't draw down. If you are concerned about these people, the humanitarian crisis, you should be for our staying here." Washington Post, August 26, 2007

"Immediately after the bombardment of Afghanistan - which actually destroyed 85 per cent of Al Qaeda infrastructure, personnel, deprived them of a safe haven - after that huge success against Al Qaeda, President Bush made terrible mistakes when he sent his troop to invade Iraq, one of the most difficult countries to be invaded, to be occupied, the worst land for democracy, human rights. And we can see the outcome"

-- Abdul Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds, Australian ABC TV's Lateline program, August 23, 2007. Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden for three days in 1996, also said, "Al Qaeda is now expanding. We used to have one Al Qaeda in Tora Bora and Afghanistan, now it is like a monster, it is like Kentucky Fried Chickens, actually, opening branches everywhere in the world"

"He's saying, essentially, that 58,000 dead in Vietnam weren't quite enough, that maybe we should have twice as big a tragic memorial on the Mall. And who's saying it? A man who chose not to serve, took steps, used family friends to get out of serving in Vietnam, didn't even show up for his own Guard duty, so that better, braver men could fight that war. He stood before those better, braver men today a coward in the company of heroes"

"They keep on doing this. They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it's always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They're desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse"

"What bothered me most is that Ari Fleischer didn't even know the guy's name. He's willing to run a multi-million dollar campaign utilizing the personal story of a soldier, and he couldn't tell you on national TV what that soldier's name is"

-- Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, after former White House press secretary Fleischer presented a commercial from his new organization, "Freedom's Watch." The ad uses double-amputee Sgt. John Kriesel to link the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq. MSNBC, August 22, 2007

"[Y]ou talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die"

-- National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell, telling the El Paso Times, August 22, 2007, that dead Americans are the "tradeoff" for any reporting or Congressional debate on the Bush warrantless wiretap program

"Let's face it, I mean, I'm a myth, you know, I'm Beowulf, you know, I'm Grendel. I don't know who I am. But they're after me"

-- Karl Rove on Fox News Sunday, August 19, 2007. in his farewell remarks he also compared himself to Moby Dick, and told the Wall St. Journal, "I'm a myth. There's the Mark of Rove"

"I - my recollection is, 'I've heard that, too.' So - but the point is, if, if, if a journalist had said to me, 'I'd like you to confirm this,' my answer would have been, 'I can't. I don't know. I've heard that, too'"

-- Karl Rove, insisting on Meet the Press, August 19, 2007, that he didn't out CIA agent Valerie Plame. Later in the show, TIME reporter Matt Cooper said, "[H]e was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn't know about it... or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense"

"All for Jesus! All for Jesus! All for Jesus! All for Jesus!"

-- Sen. Sam Brownback (R- Kansas), winner in the competition for the least subtle pander to religious voter in a presidential stump speech. Brownback uses an ancedote about meeting Mother Teresa to let audiences know he feels, "faith is a good thing"

"I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, 'This is going to fail'"

-- Sen. John McCain, CNN, August 17, 2007. While McCain urged the Pentagon in 2003 to send far more troops to Iraq to pacify the country and restore services, he repeatedly made statements over the following years that "we're on the right course," "we [should] stay the course," and at the 2004 GOP convention, called the invasion "necessary, achievable and noble"

"I feel so lucky that I am now giving them such heartburn"

"The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that's the end of it...The king can do no wrong"

-- Federal Appeals Court Judge Harry Pregerson, on the Bush administration's position that no one can sue over government surveillance of U.S. citizens because any lawsuit could reveal state secrets. Judge M. Margaret McKeown also said, August 15, 2007, that the White House position is, "We don't do it. Trust us. And don't ask us about it"

"On 9/11 all he did was run. He got that soot on him, and I don't think he's taken a shower since"

-- New York City deputy fire chief Jimmy Riches on Giuliani. Riches spent months at Ground Zero, where his firefighter son perished. AP, August 10, 2007

"He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war -- and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency"

-- Blogger Andrew Sullivan on Karl Rove, August 13, 2007. "In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country"

"The true division of importance in the world is not between different countries. The important division is between those who are committed to reason, to working out things, to understanding other people, to peaceful resolution of their differences ... and those who don't think that"

-- Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, AP, August 12, 2007

"I read the statement that Brent Scowcroft made, where he said 'I don't recognize this Dick Cheney' and thought 'how true.' I also knew and worked with Dick Cheney for years. He was alert, serious, sober and cautious. And nothing at all like this man who sits in the White House today. It's enough to get one thinking about the 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.' Something happened"

-- One of the former Supreme Allied Commanders Europe to Harper's, August 12, 2007

"Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world...It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq"

-- Dick Cheney at the American Enterprise Institute, April 15, 1994, defending George H.W. Bush's decision to not invade Iraq at the end of the Gulf War. "If we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq"

"I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them"

-- Rudy Giuliani, August 9, 2007. After heavy criticism followed, Giuliani "clarified" his stance on Aug. 10: "What I was trying to say was even those that were there less than me and the reality is that we're all in this together and I'm there with them and I feel that I have the same concerns that they have"

"I haven't seen Congress say [Al Gonzales has] done anything wrong ... Why would I hold someone accountable who has done nothing wrong?"

-- President Bush saying to Congress, "Tag, you're it." Press conference, August 9, 2007

"In order to move on impeachment now...we would effectively be paralyzed for the next six months or longer... I think we should be acquiring and accumulating all the data that is appropriate for possibly bringing criminal charges against members of this administration at a later date"

-- Senator Joseph Biden (D - Delaware), Newsweek, August 8, 2007

"I feel like I'm a death toll meter. Since the end of 2005, I've been doing a daily average of three to five funerals"

"I'm kind of the Seabiscuit of this campaign"

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich at the AFL-CIO presidential debate, August 7, 2007

"I don't support this administration"

-- Bob Novak to radio talker Diane Rehm, August 6, 2007, pouting that he wasn't invited to a Bush sit-down with right-wing columnists and radio hosts the week before. "It's like a bad marriage -- It starts nice after the honeymoon and it just gets worse." Three weeks earlier, Novak told C-SPAN he "never enjoyed such a good source inside the White House" as Karl Rove

"If you look at the domestic politics of it, we're in the end game in Iraq. We're going to be out of there in 36 months...They know we're coming out, we know we're coming out. They're all moving for position so they can survive the next stage of Iraq's history"

-- Military analyst General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey, MSNBC, August 7, 2007

"We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war...and we're losing. None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning "

-- Newt Gingrich at the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference, August 2, 2007. Gingrich also said that UPS and FedEx can track millions of packages daily, but U.S. authorities can't find illegal immigrants. The solution, he said, was to mail boxes to all illegal immigrants and arrest them

"We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having"

-- Hazim Obeid, a merchant in Karbala, which has been without electricity for 3 days. AP, August 4, 2007

"Officially, we will not deal with those who have American blood on their hands. But how do you know? You don't. There's a degree of risk involved. A lot of it is gut instinct. That's what I'm going on. They didn't teach me how to do this at West Point"

"Even if we do get documents, we're told you can't talk about the documents. This is -- did you ever read 'Catch-22' when you were younger?"

-- Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont) to White House deputy political director Scott Jennings who repeatedly claimed "executive privilege" to avoid answering questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, August 2, 2007. When Jennings said he'd not read the classic book, Leahy drew laughs by noting, "You might want to go back and read it. It's very interesting. It seems to be part of your training manual"

"You expect the White House to play by the rules and they have thrown out the rule book. History will not be kind to the arrogance and indifference to law shown by this White House"

-- Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont) interview in The Politico, August 2, 2007. Leahy also said that though he voted to confirm Chief Justice Roberts, Leahy now regrets that Roberts was ever nominated. "I think in his actions and the actions in which he has joined, he has made the court an arm of the Republican Party"

"You actually covered up the Tillman case for a while, you covered up the Jessica Lynch case, you covered up Abu Ghraib, so something was working for you"

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to Rumsfeld, who told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, August 1, 2007, that the White House and Pentagon "wasn't very good" at managing the media's view of the war

"He told me that he was afraid that he would die on a very, very sunny day, and I can only hope it was overcast and he got the weather he wanted"

-- Woody Allen, on the July 30, 2007 death of legendary film director Ingmar Bergman

"When we did away with the monarchy and went through democracy, there was a lot of fear that this sort of thing would happen. It took 200 years but we got there"

-- Bob Novak, aghast at the CNN/YouTube debate where the public was actually allowed to directly ask questions of the Democratic candidates. "I thought it was really disgusting." Bloomberg TV, July 29, 2007

"Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen"

-- Former vice president Mondale editorial in the Washington Post, July 29, 2007

"We invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales [but] we had no takers"

-- Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, July 29, 2007

"I don't want a continuation of Bush-Cheney. I don't want Bush-Cheney Lite, I want a fundamental change"

-- Senator Barack Obama on Sen. Clinton's foreign policy platform, July 27, 2007

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales portrays himself as the piano player in the bordello, unaware of what is going on around him"

-- Editorial board of the Seattle Times , July 25, 2007

"When the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn't until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the U.S. Embassy"

"They have plenty of people to check to make sure they aren't handing out payments to dead people, for God's sake"

-- Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N. Dakota) on learning that over 170,000 recipients of farm subsidies were deceased, receiving $1.1 billion fron the USDA between 1999 and 2005. "It's unconscionable that the Department of Agriculture would think that a dead person was actively engaged in the business of farming, added Iowa Republican Sen. Grassley. AP, July 24, 2007

"How you can say that you should stay on as Attorney General when we go through exercises like this where you're bobbing and weaving and ducking to avoid admitting that you deceived the Committee?"

-- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to Alberto Gonzales, following a "Who's on First?" exchange at the July 24, 2007 Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. Asked about discrepancies in his earlier testimony over domestic wiretaps, Gonzales said, "I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter." Schumer asked, "What did you say to the reporter?" "I did not speak directly to the reporter," replied Gonzales. "Okay," Schumer continued, "what did your spokesperson say to the reporter?" Gonzales: "I don't know"

"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right"

-- Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), who was denied access to White House plans for dealing with an act of homeland terrorism. A member of the Homeland Security Committee with clearance to read classified documents in the secure "bubbleroom," DeFazio told The Oregonian, July 20, 2007, "I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack"

"All they do is have Iraq votes and investigations"

-- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) yearning for the halcyon days of Republican Senate control, when there were no debates on Iraq policy and no pesky investigations. CNN Late Edition, July 22, 2007

"I think what you've seen is a declining level in the overall pace of attacks"

-- White House press secretary Tony "Baghdad Bob" Snow, July 20, 2007. A Reuters analysis released the same day found that attacks in Iraq are at the highest daily average since May 2003

"Baghdad, can you hear the U.S. Senate?"

-- Senator Joseph Biden (D - Delaware), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as a live video link from Iraq was interrupted, July 19, 2007. "Senate, can you hear the American people?" Shouted a quick-witted member of the audience

"If there is one word, I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq - on the streets, in the countryside, in the neighborhoods and at the national level - that word would be 'fear'"

-- U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testimony to Congress, July 19, 2007. Later, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters that Petraeus' staff will need "at least until November" to evaluate progress

"If we had those 40 million children that were killed [by abortion] over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today"

-- Tom DeLay, speaking at the College Republican National Convention in Washington, July 13, 2007

"I'm a terrible long-term planner"

-- Condoleezza "thanks for telling us now" Rice, asked about her future in a Business Week interview, July 23, 2007

"His family thought their child was learning Islamic studies"

-- Afghanistan President Karzai, issuing a pardon to a 14-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan who tried and failed to blow up an Afghan provincial governor. "Today we are facing a hard fact, that is a Muslim child was sent to madrassa to learn Islamic subjects, but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him toward suicide and prepared him to die and kill," Karzai told Reuters, July 16, 2007

"I can laugh about it now but the doctor told me it could have been serious"

-- Australian Rugby player Ben Czislowski, who wondered why he had been having shooting pains in his head and an eye infection since a doctor stitched up a forehead wound after an April 1 game. Czislowski had an opponent's tooth embedded under his skin. The Australian, July 17, 2007

"I hope I don't end up in purgatory with my severed head in my arms"

-- Bob Novak on his distinguished 45-year career as a columnist. Novak gave himself the nickname "Prince of darkness" in the late 1970s. C-SPAN interview, July 15, 2007

"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice"

-- Marine corporal Saul Lopezromo testifiying at a July 14, 2007 court-martial that "dead-checking" - fatally shooting a wounded Iraqi instead of seeking medical help - was routine for his unit. Lopezromo told the court that he and fellow Marines viewed all Iraqi men as hostile. "I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy"

"They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he's decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we've ever come to a dictatorship"

-- Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) on the Ed Schultz radio show, July 12, 2007. Boxer repeatedly also said impeachment should not be taken off the table, a slap at fellow Bay Area Congresswoman, House Speaker Pelosi

"This progress report is like the guy who's falling from a 100-story building and says half-way down that 'everything's fine'"

-- Senator Joseph Biden (D - Delaware) on the White House claim that the July 12, 2007 interim report on the troop "surge" has resulted in "satisfactory performance so far on 8 of the 18 benchmarks." Among the satisfactory claims is that the Iraq army has provided 3 brigades to provide security in Baghdad -- but the Pentagon's actual report found that up to two-thirds of those soldiers are AWOL, have quit the military, or are on leave

"What sectors should be on alert as a result of your 'gut feeling?' What cities should be asking their law enforcement to work double shifts because of your 'gut feeling?' Are the American people supposed to purchase duct tape and plastic sheeting because of your 'gut feeling?'"

-- Letter from Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D - Miss.), chair of the Homeland Security Committee, to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, July 11, 2007. Chertoff said the day before that he had a "gut feeling" that there was a heightened chance of an attack this summer, in part because, "Summertime seems to be appealing to them"

"Let's do this. Let me cut the ribbon ... and then why don't you all yell simultaneously. Like, really loudly. And that way, you might get noticed. I'll, like, listen, internalize, play like I'm gonna answer the question, and then smile at you and just say 'got it. Thanks. Thanks for such a solid, sound question'"

-- President Bush at ceremony reopening the press briefing room at White House , July 11, 2007

"I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me"

-- Wendy Vitter, wife of Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) denouncing President Clinton's sexual trysts in 2000. The Times-Picayune reported July 10, 2007, that the owner of a New Orleans whorehouse said the social conservative Republican was a regular customer in the mid-1990s, and the Senator also apologized the same day for a "very serious sin in my past" after phone records linked him to the "D.C. Madam's" escort service

"Our principle health problem down there is gain of weight, we feed 'em so well"

-- Karl Rove on Gitmo conditions, Aspen Daily News, July 8, 2007

"Here's why the president acted the way he did. He knew Bill Clinton was joining Hillary in Iowa on July 4th -- no, I'm serious -- So on July 2nd, Ed Gillespie, who's a very canny Republican operator, said, Let's pardon Libby. Clinton will rise to the bait, and we could spend the last half of the week debating the unbelievable Clinton pardons against the defensible Bush pardon"

-- Neo-con pundit Bill Kristol on Bush's clemency for Libby. "I regard this as an extremely clever Machiavellian move by the president. It cheers me up about the Bush White House, and I'm really heartened," he told Fox News Sunday, July 8, 2007

"People have a right to expect from the government and security agencies protection for their lives, land, honor and property. [Otherwise], the people have no choice but to take up their own defense"

-- Iraq's Sunni vice president al-Hashemi, calling for citizens to take up arms to protect themselves, since the government can't. His statement followed a July 8, 2007 bomb attack which killed 155, the worst single act of violence since the U.S. invasion

"I tried to avoid this war. I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers"

-- Colin Powell, who told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado that he spent 2 1/2 hours with Bush trying to convince the president to not invade Iraq. Powell also said Iraq is now in civil war, which "will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms. It's not going to be pretty to watch, but I don't know any way to avoid it. It is happening now." London Sunday Times, July 8, 2007

"In effect they're saying is that we can't tell you whether you have been wiretapped because that's a secret. And unless you know you've been wiretapped, you can't challenge that program"

-- Steven R. Shapiro, ACLU legal director on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refusing to consider an ACLU lawsuit over Bush's domestic spying program because the ACLU couldn't prove their calls had been tapped. "This is a Catch-22," Shapiro said in a statement, July 6, 2007

"Here's a guy who is lower off in the polls than any president in modern history and he goes ahead and he does something that just flies in the face of the sensibilities of the American people"

-- Senator Joseph Biden (D - Delaware) on Bush blocking Libby from serving any jail time. "This guy is brain dead," Biden said a tcampaign event in a Des Moines backyard. "I know I'll be quoted, I'll be killed for that." NY Times, July 4, 2007

"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours"

-- Oliver Stone, on learning that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has rejected his proposal for a biographical film because Stone is "part of the Great Satan." In a July 1, 2007 statement, the Oscar-winning director of anti-war and conspiracy movies replied, "I have been called a lot of things, but never a great satan"

"Before the conduct of the general elections, I was selling a minimum of seven machetes daily but can hardly sell one a day now"

-- Usman Masi, a Nigerian merchant quoted by Reuters, July 2, 2007. At least 200 people were killed in politically motivated violence during months of campaigning ahead of the April vote

"Human instinct is when someone has a serious injury to look the other way. He actually asked him to take them off. He actually touched the eye a little. It was almost as if he felt he had to confront it"

-- Rep. Peter King (R-NY), recalling a creepy moment with Bush when the president asked a soldier with an eye injury to remove his dark glasses so he could see the wound. Washington Post, July 2, 2007

"The President's decision to commute Mr. Libby's sentence is disgraceful. Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone"

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, July 2, 2007

"It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much"

-- Supreme Ct. Justice Stephen Breyer, opposing the Court's 5-4 ruling that schools cannot use racial quotas to maintain an integrated student population. June 28, 2007

"I'm more of a man than any liberal"

-- The enigmatic Ann Coulter to Bill O'Reilly, June 28, 2007

"It's the incredible shrinking presidency. He's lost battles in the courts. He's lost battles in Iraq. He's lost battles on Capitol Hill. His bank account is empty and there's nowhere to go for more. I think his presidency is essentially over"

-- NYU professor Paul Light, an expert on the executive branch, on the the president's declining prospects. The last week of June found Bush with an all-time low approval of 27% and 3 of 4 Americans saying the Iraq war is going "badly." Light also proposed a headline to sum up the outcome as members of his own party killed his immigration reform bill: "The president loses his legacy." McClatchy Newspapers, June 28, 2007

"If you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, kill the right people"

-- Army col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor, who told the Army Times, June 28, 2007 that Rumsfeld turned special operations forces into a "giant killing machine," but he expects new commanders will restore balance. "In most cases, you're not going to have to kill people and that's the great virtue of special operations. That's been lost over the last several years"

"I said, 'You're gonna like this guy -- he's humble, he's honest, he's hard-working, and he's smart.' And he's proved me wrong"

-- Former U.S. Attorney John McKay, recalling that he told lawyer friends it was good news when Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general. McKay was fired in 2005 after he refused to investigate the Democratic candidate in a close Oregon governor's race. The Oregonian, June 29, 2007

"If there is an all-out war between the United States and various radical Muslim groups worldwide, who would you rather have in charge -- Democrats or Republicans?"

-- One of the questions on the June 26-27, 2007 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Respondents picked Democrats to be in charge during WWIII by 41 to 38%

"We cannot attribute all the violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda. There's a tendency now to lump it all together, and call it al-Qaeda. We have to be very careful with that. This is a very complex region. al-Qaeda is certainly a component. But there's larger components"

-- Major General (ret.) John Batiste at House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearings, June 27, 2007. Batiste also said the troop surge in Iraq is "destroying our military, with little to show for it"

"I've heard he's been called Bush's poodle. He's bigger than that"

-- President Bush on Tony Blair, June 26, 2007. "Tony's great skill, and I wish I had it, is that he's very articulate. I wish I was a better speaker. This guy can really -- he can talk"

"You had a column several years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean's death and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car saying, 'Ask me about my dead son.' This is not legitimate political dialogue...I'm the mother of that boy who died. My children participate -- these young people behind you are the age of my children. You're asking them to participate in a dialogue that is based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues, and I don't think that's serving them or this country very well"

-- Elizabeth Edwards confronting Ann Coulter during a live interview on MSNBC's Hardball, June 26, 2007. Coulter claimed, "the wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking...to stop writing books." Edwards replied, "If you can't write them without [using personal attacks], that is fine"

"If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot"

-- Ann Coulter on ABC's Good Morning America, June 25, 2007

"Many people think the first attack on America was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993. The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond. Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it"

-- Rudy Giuliani, June 26, 2007

"The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it. I don't think President Bush deserves it. The people who deserve blame for Sept. 11, I think we should remind ourselves, are the terrorists -- the Islamic fanatics -- who came here and killed us"

-- Rudy Giuliani, September 27, 2006

"Back in the 70s, everybody was aghast at what was happening...looking back, it seems so minor compared to what the CIA is doing today"

-- Author and spook watcher James Bamford on the announcement that the CIA would release details of the Agency's "family jewels." Bamford told NPR, June 24, 2007, "The CIA held a Russian defector in a jail that was created by the CIA, a mini-prison for this person on CIA property for two or three years. Now you have the CIA keeping people in prisons all over the world, in secret prisons. It talks about the mail-opening that was done by the CIA, reading letters going from the United States to and from Russia, and also China. And that was an outrage at the time. But today the intelligence community is reading hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of e-mails of Americans"

"I said, 'Dick, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you're going to be doing all this political fundraising... you'll be going to the funerals.' I mean, this is what vice presidents do"

-- Dan Quayle offering newbie Dick Cheney advice. Quayle told the Washington Post, June 24, 2007, that Cheney "got that little smile" and replied, "I have a different understanding with the president"

"I still prefer my 'Godfather' imitation, but you know, I have a lot more practice at it"

-- Rudy Giuliani on the Clinton video spoof of "The Sopranos," quoted in NY Daily News, June 21, 2007. Giuliani has used his Brando-Godfather imitation at public appearances for over a decade, most famously at his final Inner Circle dinner as mayor in 2001, where he also imitated a Radio City Music Hall Rockette in custom-made high heels and flesh-colored tights

"We're all reacting here and we're putting on shit, we have nothing going -- welcome back to Hardball"

-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews caught after a commercial in an unguarded dialog with his producer, June 20, 2007

"We are going to win this, but it's going to take time. It's a marathon rather than a sprint - we should be thinking in terms of decades"

-- Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, British ambassador to Afghanistan. BBC, June 20, 2007

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so. So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes"

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, defending the hero of Fox Network's "24," who routinely tortures suspects or their families. Three months earlier, Scalia mocked opponents who viewed the Constitution as a "living" document and not absolute, telling a university audience that "the Constitution was [once] regarded as a rock to which society was anchored. And that rock didn't move." Quotes from Toronto Globe and Mail, June 16, 2007 and Toledo Blade, March 14, 2007

"When an announcer says, 'It's a report you have to see,' you probably don't. When an anchor says, 'shocking details,' they probably aren't. When a reporter claims his news is 'fair and balanced,' it probably isn't"

-- ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson commencement address at Union College, June 17, 2007. "And, when politicians say, 'I'm going to level with you,' they probably won't"

"Blair's real concern was that there would be 'a knee-jerk reaction' by the Americans ... they would go thundering off and nuke the shit out of the place without thinking straight"

-- Former British ambassador to Washington Christopher Meyer, explaining why the UK joined the attack on Afghanistan after 9/11. Meyer's comments appear in the documentary, "The Rise and Fall of Tony Blair" appearing on British TV June 23, 2007

"I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting"

-- Ret. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, recalling a May 6, 2004 meeting with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and other top Pentagon brass about his investigation into abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Taguba says he was mocked by Rumsfeld, who was particularly concerned over how the report was leaked to the public. "The whole idea that Rumsfeld projects - 'We're here to protect the nation from terrorism' - is an oxymoron. He and his aides have abused their offices and have no idea of the values and high standards that are expected of them. And they've dragged a lot of officers with them." The New Yorker, June 25, 2007 edition

"I'd been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia"

-- Ret. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the Pentagon's investigation into Abu Ghraib prison torture, recalling a warning in 2004 by then-CENTCOM head General John Abizaid that "You and your report will be investigated." Taguba, who was asked to retire last year, said he soon realized that his military career was finished. The New Yorker, June 25, 2007 edition

"Do you think there's a sex appeal for this guy, this sort of mature, older man, you know? ... Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever"

-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the odors of Fred Thompson, June 13, 2007

"Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem"

-- Senator Trent Lott (R-Mississippi), suddenly upset with right-wing radio now that it's drumming up opposition to the Bush immigration reform bill. New York Times, June 15, 2007

"Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don't know the answer to that. That's in the hands of other people"

-- Rudy Giuliani, offering his winning "Que Sera, Sera" Iraq platform. New York Times, June 13, 2007

"The main reason why I think Murdoch wants the Journal: He loves the editorial page. In fact, he's gaga over it... I think he would like to elect a president, [Citizen] Kane style, with it"

-- CNBC host and columnist Jim Cramer on Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy The Wall Street Journal. June 18, 2007 issue of New York magazine

"Are you saying that detaining people who are plucked off the battlefields is an assault on democracy? Are you kidding me? You're talking about the people who were responsible for supporting the Taliban, somehow detaining them is an assault on democracy?"

-- White House spokesman Tony Snow, answering a question about indefinite detention of suspects and boldly showing off his ignorance of the Geneva Conventions, common law dating back seven centuries, the United States Constitution, and democracy. June 12, 2007

"The reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration"

-- Bill O'Reilly radio show, June 12, 2007. "CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions. Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No! It doesn't mean anything"

"I don't think I called for a deadline. I thought I said, time -- I did? What exactly did I say? I said, 'deadline?' Okay, yes, then I meant what I said"

-- President Bush, June 10, 2007. The top White House news from the day before was Bush insisting on a deadline for a UN resolution declaring Kosovo's independence

"If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I'd close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, 'Well, then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus.' So what? Let them. Isn't that what our system's all about?"

-- Colin Powell on Meet the Press, June 10, 2007

"We have made a deal with the devil"

-- An intelligence officer in the 1st Infantry battalion, which has given police powers and weapons to a Sunni militia in western Baghdad. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a Sunni leader says the group is fighting Al-Qaeda and Shiite militias. "Let's be honest, the enemy now is not the Americans, for the time being," he told the Washington Post, June 9, 2007

"This war is going to go on for a long time. It's a generational war"

-- Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, nominee to be the next Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman. He also told sailors at a May 8, 2007 Q&A session, "I honestly believe this is the most dangerous time in my life." Honolulu Star-Bulletin

"If Hillary Clinton were elected president, do you think Bill Clinton is likely to personally behave in ways that will get him into trouble, or do you think he will avoid those situations?"

-- One of the questions on the June 5-6, 2007 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. 45% of Repubs and 8% of Dems thought he "will get into trouble"

"Sometimes I think that in the U.S. we're looking at Iraq right now as though it were the last half of a three-reel movie. For Iraqis, it's a five-reel movie and they're still in the first half of it. I don't see an end game, as it were, in sight"

-- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on NPR, June 6, 2007

"Staying here is like committing suicide"

-- Mudher Rafid, a Baghdad University graduate who is now fleeing the country. Karar Alaa, a medical student at Babil University also told the New York Times, June 5, 2007, "Of course I will feel sad to leave my family and my friends who cannot go with me somewhere else. But it's my security. It's my life. I think after what I saw, there is no more future here"

"The candidates that can't face Fox, can't face Al Qaeda, and that's what's coming"

-- Fox News CEO Roger Ailes on the five Democratic presidential candidates that are refusing to participate in a debate managed by Fox News. Ailes remark at a June 5, 2007 awards ceremony for opinion writing

"I have myself been to meetings after which I could not remember what agency or department most of the people worked for, or even why they were there"

-- Former UN envoy and neo-con John Bolton, asking leniency for "Scooter" Libby on the basis of his own incompetency. Letter to Judge Reggie Walton, May 14, 2007

"When Lincoln ran for presidency in 1860 -- the truth is, that's why he got this honorary degree, your college was trying to help get him elected, and you wanted to give him a little boost. 146 years later, you gave Stephen Colbert a degree to give his ratings a boost. That's what Al Gore now calls an assault on reason"

-- Bill Clinton, commencement speaker at Knox College, June 2, 2007. "[Now in] 2007, you're giving me an honorary degree so I can be attacked by Stephen Colbert"

"First responders in Colorado have recently provided critical services in the face of blizzards and tornados. Since I don't think first responders have really done anything significant in comparison to their counterparts who have dealt with real natural disasters, I have no idea what else to say here"

-- Press release from Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colorado), June 1, 2007. Allard spokesman Steve Wymer later said that he wrote that section of the statement, but it wasn't supposed to be released

"Overall, I would say what I see here today is progress. Significant progress from the last time I was here in December. And, if you can see progress in war that means you are heading in the right direction"

-- Senator Joe Lieberman in a May 30, 2007 CNN interview from Baghdad. The same day, McClatchy Newspapers reported Lieberman met with a group of 30 soldiers who had discussed what they wanted to say to the Senator. We don't feel like we're making any progress," was the group's statement, and their top question was, "When are we going to get out of here?"

"Do you think, uh, do you think, Jill, he's had cosmetic surgery around the eyes, below the eyes? What do you think? ... You don't want to talk about that one? Everybody's so afraid of that one, but I think there's some work been done. It looks pretty good actually"

-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Al Gore, whose new book, "The Assault on Reason," condemns the media's obsession with the superficial and celebrity. May 30, 2007

"See how many people are dying in Darfur: None"

-- John Ukec Lueth Ukec, Sudan ambassador to the U.S. asked at the National Press Club about the 400,000 dead. As for the 2 million refugees, he answered "I am not a statistician." Washington Post, May 31, 2007

"There's no question that this is likelier to fail than succeed at this point"

-- Stephen Biddle, an advisor to American commander in Iraq Gen. Petraeus, on the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq. "If I had to put a number to it, maybe it's a one in ten. Maybe it's a one in five longshot, if we play our cards right," he told CBS Evening News May 29, 2007. His prediction came a day before the second anniversary of Cheney's 2005 prediction: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency"

"When you have the collapse of the Republican Party, you have an immediate turn toward the Democrats, not because the Democrats are offering anything better, but on a 'not them' basis. And if you end up in a 2008 campaign between 'them' and 'not them,' 'not them' is going to win"

-- Newt Gingrich, who now compares the Bush presidency to Jimmy Carter's, and predicts that the only way Repubs can keep the White House is for its candidate to run against Bush and his record. The New Yorker, June 4, 2007 issue

"We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us "

-- Staff Sgt. David Safstrom, who said that his patrol recently killed a man setting a roadside bomb, then searched the body and found ID showing he was a sergeant in the Iraqi Army. "I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?'" New York Times May 27, 2007

"I would like to suggest...that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him [to Baghdad] as mayor, since the neocons got us in over there"

-- Rep. Walter Jones (R-N Carolina), ABC News, May 29, 2007

"He said, 'No, no, they'll be glad to see us. This will start the process of revolution around the Middle East that will transform everything' "

-- Col. Patrick Lang, quoting Paul Wolfowitz from a pre-invasion conversation on Iraq. Lang, who had been the Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East expert, said at a May 7, 2007 University of District of Columbia forum that he warned Wolfowitz, "You know, these guys are not going to welcome you... [they] detest foreigners, and the few who really like you are the least representative of the various breeds of people there. They're going to fight you, then, if you occupy the place there's going to be a massive insurgency"

"You know what's going to happen in September? They'll bring General Petraeus back and he'll say, 'Just give me until the end of year. I think things are turning around.' And then we'll be out of session, come back in late January, February, and the fact is a thousand more troops will lose their lives in a situation that doesn't make any sense and it is hurting our military, hurting our country. This should not wait till September"

-- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) on MSNBC, May 24, 2007

"The Middle East looked nice and cozy for awhile. Everything looked fine on the surface, but beneath the surface, there was a lot of resentment, there was a lot of frustration, such that 19 kids got on airplanes and killed 3,000 Americans. It's in the long-term interest of this country to address the root causes of these extremists and radicals exploiting people that cause them to kill themselves and kill Americans and others"

-- The mind of President George W. Bush, May 24, 2007. "A lot of the spectaculars you're seeing are caused by al-Qaeda"

"Certainly there's been an uptick in violence. It's a snapshot. It's a moment"

-- President Bush, May 24, 2007. The same day, the Washington Post reported that so far in May there has been an average of 107 bodies dumped each week in Baghdad, a greater number than in January before the "surge" began. "The level of sectarian violence is an important indicator of whether or not the strategy that we have implemented is working. Since our operation began, the number of sectarian murders has dropped substantially" -- President Bush, exactly two weeks earlier, on May 10, 2007

"This book, unlike the President's State of the Union Address, has been fact-checked"

-- Al Gore, in a May 22, 2007 conference call with bloggers. Earlier that day, Bush spokesman Tony Snow said of Gore's new book: "I don't know if they're going to do a reprinting of the book to try to get the facts straight. The fact-checkers may have to take a look at it"

"These are venal people. I'm embarrassed for them"

-- Senator Trent Lott (R-Mississippi), who is seeking to strip insurance companies of their 62-year-old exemption from federal antitrust laws. Lott was angered when State Farm ruled that he was uninsured because flood waters, not Hurricane Katrina, had destroyed his beachfront home in Pascagoula. "Disasters make for strange bedfellows," says antitrust bill cosponsor, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana). Bloomberg News, May 21, 2007

"Maybe I should wait a couple of weeks and see if it changes, because it's changed in less than a year from his position before. And maybe his solution will be to get out his small-varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn"

-- Sen. John McCain, scoring a two-fer on Mitt Romney's devolving position on immigration and gun control. Quote from McCain's May 21, 2007 conference call with bloggers

"I remember waiting; it wasn't long, but it felt like forever. And I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? What if they get him to sign something? Do I intervene physically? What do I do?"

-- James Comey, on the tense moments in John Ashcroft's intensive care hospital room as he prepared to confront Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card. U.S.News & World Report, May 20, 2007

"Friends, the press and the government are in bed together in an embrace so intimate and wrong, they could spoon on a twin mattress and still have room for Ted Koppel. Journalists used to questions the reasons for war and expose abuse of power. Now, like toothless babies, they suckle on the sugary teat of misinformation and poop it into the diaper we call the 6:00 News. Demand more of your government. Demand more of your press"

-- "The Simpsons," May 20, 2007

"Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient"

-- President Jimmy Carter, asked by BBC Radio May 19, 2007 to describe Tony Blair's relationship to Bush. Carter added that Blair's backing enabled Bush to tell American critics of the Iraq invasion, "we must be more correct in our actions than the world thinks because Great Britain is backing us"

"What they have gotten wrong is the idea that the military will be leaving Iraq in June, which one individual said he was sure was a major factor in the diminishing attacks. Oh well, this is one time it might be best that folks don't fully understand things"

-- An internal January, 2004 document from the Coalition Provisional Authority, crediting a drop in Iraq violence on the mistaken belief that U.S. forces were about to pullout. The document was discovered by researcher Pete Moore, who found some CPA documents in Word format contained sections not for public release

"Well, I suppose that's true if you leave out the fact that she authorized it and supported it, and I said it was a bad idea"

-- Senator Barack Obama on Sen. Clinton's recent claim that she and Obama have voted mostly the same way on Iraq. New York Times, May 18, 2007

"This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it"

-- Washington Post op/ed by former military commanders Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar on Tenet's justification of torture, May 17, 2007. Krulak was USMC commandant 1995-99 and Hoar was CENTCOM commander in chief 1991-94

"The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp"

-- Washington Post op/ed by former military commanders Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar, May 17, 2007. Krulak was USMC commandant 1995-99 and Hoar was CENTCOM commander in chief 1991-94

"If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too"

-- Paul Wolfowitz, threatening any senior World Bank staff memors who might reveal the pay raises and promotions for his paramour Shaha Riza, according to a witness quoted in a Bank investigation released May 15, 2007

"The story is a shocking one. It makes you almost gulp"

-- Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York), after hearing testimony from James Comey, who was acting Attorney General in 2004. Comey says Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card visited John Ashcroft in his intensive care hospital room and tried to get the gravely ill man to sign documents approving domestic spying programs. "It has some of the characteristics of the 'Saturday night massacre,'" Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn) also said after the May 15, 2007 hearing

"He's terrible. He shouldn't be there. But there's a lot of bad people in this administration"

-- Columnist Bob Novak on the Democrat's "pounding on this poor Gonzalez who never should have been in a high government post in the first place." Novak also told Bloomberg TV, May 11, 2007, "The president is stuck with these subpar people he brought up from Texas. That's a failing on President Bush's part"

"It is clear that whatever the mission used to be, it is either accomplished or over. If there are remaining American interests, then let's spell them out"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton on MSNBC, May 11, 2007

"I think all roads lead to Rove. I think that's why the president is circling some pretty major wagons around him to keep him from testifying under oath, which subjects him to criminal prosecution"

-- Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias quoted in The Albuquerque Tribune, May 10, 2007

"Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden. He's the man with the authority to commit the force"

-- Dick Cheney, distancing himself from the responsibility for the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 3,384 American soldiers. FOX News, May 10, 2007

"It was a very remarkable, candid conversation. People are always saying President Bush is in a bubble. Well, this was our chance, and we took it"

-- Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Virginia), one of 11 House Republicans who met with Bush May 8, 2007 to warn that their patience with the Iraq war is wearing out. Several pundits have noted that their bubble-popping visit occurred on a day Cheney was not available

"For the sake of our security, our economy, our jobs and our planet, the age of oil must end in our time"

-- Senator Barack Obama to the Detroit Economic Club, May 7, 2007. "The auto industry's refusal to act for a long time has left it mired in a predicament for which there is no easy way out," Obama said. "But 'expensive to do' is no longer an excuse for failure to do"

"If we're putting the Americans right within their arms' reach, they don't have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don't have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you're a terrorist"

-- Fox News commentator Dick Morris on Hannity and Colmes, May 7, 2007. "If we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like"

"We're seeing the very early demise of an administration. It usually happens six months before a president leaves office in a second term, but in this case it's happening now"

-- A former White House adviser to Bush's father, quoted May 6, 2007 by U.S. News & World Report. The same day a poll found Bush with 28% approval, tying Jimmy Carter's 1979 rating and only 4 points above Nixon prior to his resignation

"Everyone has an agenda, and it has damaged the situation in Iraq. We had hoped for a dialogue. Squabble anywhere else in the world, but not on Iraqi soils"

-- Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki on the failure of Iran, Syria and the U.S. to have a diplomatic meeting at the Egypt summit, much less come to some sort of agreement on the Iraq situation. AP, May 5, 2007

"No one wanted to think about how many more soldiers would die"

-- Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.) on the "Wall of the Fallen" in the lobby of the Rayburn Building. No names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been added since November because the memorial display is almost full. San Jose Mercury News, May 4, 2007

"You'll get your pipeline, the governor gets his bill and I'll get my job in Barbados"

-- Former Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott to executives of an unnamed company, according to a federal indictment. Republican Kott promised that he would help pass pro-oil industry legislation in exchange for bribes and a job as the warden of a private prison in Barbados being built by the same company. At one point, according to the indictment, the company's chief executive told Kott, "I own your ass." Anchorage Daily News, May 4, 2007

"I was dumbfounded. I've covered riots. I've covered chaos. I was never hit or struck or humiliated the way the LAPD violated me yesterday"

"Success is not, no violence. There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives "

-- President Bush, May 2, 2007. "[We cannot] think of our goal in this war in the way Senator Kerry described it yesterday in The New York Times. Quote: 'We have to get back to the place,' he said, where terrorism is 'a nuisance'...This is naive and dangerous." -- Vice President Cheney, October 11, 2004

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however"

-- Radio and CNN host Glenn Beck, comparing global warming to eugenics and Gore to Adolph Hitler. "The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government." April 30, 2007 radio broadcast

"The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue...the media made that the issue because they knew Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction. So we knew that they were there. But that was incidental to the fact we were going after terrorist camps"

-- Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), finalist in the White House competition to stuff as many lies as possible into a single statement. Tulsa World, April 28, 2007

"She just can't say no to that man"

-- Clara Rice, stepmother of Secretary of State Condoleeza, on the latter's relationship with President Bush. Condi is also quoted herself in a new book, "Twice As Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path To Power," on why she was drawn to Bush: "I thought he was wonderful to be around. He was warm and funny and easy to be around. I thought he had just an incredibly inquisitive mind ... You could barely finish an explanation before he was digging into it." Book excerpted in Newsweek, May 7, 2007 issue

"The idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact..I don't know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan"

-- Condoleeza Rice on Face the Nation, April 29, 2007, denying that ex-CIA Director Tenet warned her in the summer of 2001 that an attack on Americans was imminent and urging preemptive action against al-Qaeda. The Clinton administration had also prepared 5 separate operations to kill or arrest Osama in Afghanistan during 1998 and 1999, according to the 9/11 Commission report

"Listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on 'Meet the Press' on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq. And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous ... Let's everybody just get up and tell the truth. Tell the American people what really happened"

-- Ex-CIA Director George Tenet on 60 Minutes, April 29, 2007

"I'm just envisioning what it would be like to be a young soldier in the middle of Iraq and realizing that politicians have all of the sudden made military determinations. And in my judgment, that would put a kid in harm's way, more so than he or she already is"

-- President Bush, apparently telling the troops that staying in Iraq indefinitely is safer than withdrawl. April 27, 2007

"These are Iraqis killing each other. So what did we do? If you're saying it's our fault that we unmasked them as knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century -- fine! I'll take credit"

-- Fox News Radio's John Gibson, April 23, 2007 broadcast

"The Bush Administration has redefined the famous challenge of President Kennedy's inaugural address. Instead of 'Ask not what your country can do for you,' it has become 'Ask what your government can do for our party'"

-- Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chair of the Democratic Caucus. Speech to the Brookings Institution, April 25, 2007

"The crueler the war gets, the crueler the attacks get on anybody who doesn't salute or play the game. And then one day, the people who are doing the attacking look around and they've used up their credibility"

-- Pulitzer-prize winning Vietnam War reporter David Halberstam, who died April 23, 2007. "I think the truth will always out," Halberstam also said, November 20, 2006. "The people who attacked us are mostly forgotten; most of them have apologized"

"The President on Friday used the word 'progress' no fewer than ten times when he gave his Iraq update... The White House transcript says the President made those remarks in the State of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial"

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, April 23, 2007

"They've been doing it in Florida, and the old people seem to like it"

"I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs. Iraq is going to have to learn -- as did, say, Northern Ireland -- to live with some degree of sensational attacks"

-- Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S. commander in Iraq, on what passes for progress these days in Baghdad. "He's actually watering the grass!" Petraeus said with a laugh, peering down at a man tending a soccer field, with children playing nearby. Washington Post, April 22, 2007

"I wish the war were over. I wish the war never existed"

-- Karl Rove, who repeatedly pressed Republican candidates during the 2002 elections to "focus on the war" in their campaigns. Asked during a Q&A whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war in Iraq, Rove answered, "I think it was Osama bin Laden's." Akron Beacon Journal, April 19, 2007

"The Court's hostility to the right Roe and Casey secured is not concealed. Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label 'abortion doctor.' A fetus is described as an 'unborn child,' and as a 'baby;' second-trimester, previability abortions are referred to as 'late-term;' and the reasoned medical judgments of highly trained doctors are dismissed as 'preferences' motivated by 'mere convenience'"

-- Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg on the court's right-wing rhetoric in the 5-4 decision to ban some types of abortion. April 18, 2007

"This president doesn't care one whit about the fiscal situation, doesn't worry at all about deficits or debt. His father did and his father paid a heavy political price for it. So I really think there's almost nothing -- there's nothing between the two of them in terms of fiscal policy"

-- Bruce Bartlett, domestic policy adviser to Reagan and a treasury official under George H.W. Bush, on PBS, April 17, 2007. "If I didn't know with a certainty they were related, I wouldn't think that they were"

"The pressure must be taken off the current force and their families who have already sacrificed so much. If the President insists on continuing the current operational tempo and policy, then he should call for a military draft. That is the responsible thing to do"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn) to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, April 18, 2007

"We're all concerned, as we should be, about these events at Virginia Tech today. In Iraq this is a daily event. Imagine how horrible it would be if this kind of massacre were occurring every single day"

-- Mideast expert and blogger Professor Juan Cole on PBS Newshour, April 16, 2007

"You can listen to simplistic statements of the administration, appealing to emotion and fear, or you can take an analytical approach and see the reality of the world. I live in an entirely different world of reality than President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other members of the administration"

-- Retired Brig. Gen. John Johns at an April 16, 2007 press conference, shortly after Bush delivered a speech laced with dark threats of "enemies that could just as easily come here to kill us," bring "death and destruction...here in America," "bring further destruction to our country," as well as repeated invocations of 9/11

"Yeah, I have a timetable, it's called now"

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich at a April 10, 2007 candidates' forum hosted by MoveOn.org. "There's no reason why Democrats should give the president any money, they have the power to end the war now"

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?"

-- Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca in an excerpt from his new book, "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" Iacocca accuses Bush of leading the nation to war "on a pack of lies" and writes, "Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course'"

"By all accounts, Dick Cheney is one of the most powerful vice presidents in our history, if you define power as influence over policy. We need to ask ourselves: What does it mean for our country when the vice president's words lack credibility, but he still wields great power?"

-- Senator Carl Levin (D - Michigan) on Cheney's repeated lying about Saddam links to al-Qaeda. Los Angeles Times op/ed, April 12, 2007

"The American people have wanted change in Iraq, and they got it. The president announced a new policy on January 10th that was quite different and divergent from where we were before"

-- White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, blaming the troop surge on the 2 of 3 Americans who polls show oppose increased U.S. troops in Iraq. April 10, 2007

"We find very nice things to play with in the hospital rubbish. We find syringes, cotton and empty bottles. Once we found a fetus -- that was amazing! We play like we're doctors"

"I thought commencement would be a spiritual, uplifting exercise in which I could take advice from someone I held in the highest esteem. It seems that was an extremely idealistic notion"

-- Tricia Campbell, one of many Republican, Mormon seniors at Brigham Young University protesting the commencement speaker invitation to Cheney. "The problem is this is a morally dubious man," Andrew Christensen also told the New York Times April 10, 2007. "It's challenging the morality and integrity of this institution"

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going"

-- Former top NATO commander and Marine General (ret.) John J. "Jack" Sheehan, one of at least three generals who turned down a White House offer to be "War Czar." Sheehan told the Washington Post, April 11, 2007, that he believes that Cheney and other hawks are still calling the shots. "There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did. And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence"

"The president is inviting us down to the White House with preconditions...We are an independent branch of this government, and by our Constitution we have equal say that he has. And he's got to listen to us. Because we are speaking for the American people; he isn't"

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Bush's invitation to discuss, but not compromise, Iraq war funding authorization with Congressional Democrats. Asked why lawmakers should attend the meeting if Bush won't negotiate, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino replied, "Maybe they need to hear again from the president about why he thinks it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal." April 10, 2007

"Neither has the U.S. failed, nor the Taliban coming back. Al-Qaeda is defeated"

-- Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai to ABC News, April 9, 2007. In the preceeding week, a suicide bomber killed 4 in Afghanistan's capitol, the Taliban lynched 3 as 'NATO spies,' a U.S. soldier was killed by an Afghan IED, 6 Canadian soldiers were killed by another IED, the translator for an Italian journalist was beheaded, and a Taliban commander vowed that he had thousands of suicide bombers ready to blow

"Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that"

-- An airlines employee to Princeton Prof. Walter F. Murphy, a constitutional law expert who discovered that his name was on the Terrorist Watch List when he tried to board a flight. Murphy told the agent that he hadn't marched, but had delivered a lecture last year highly critical of Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," Murphy was told

"I've been a hunter pretty much all my life. I've never really shot anything terribly big. I used to hunt rabbits. Shooting a rabbit with a single-shot .22 is pretty hard, and after watching me try for a couple of weeks (my cousins) said, 'We'll slip you the semiautomatic. You'll do better with that.' And I sure did."

-- GOP presidential candidate and power weapon bunny blaster Mitt Romney, Boston Herald , April 9, 2007. A few days before, he told another group that he had only one hunting experience in his life prior to last year

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order"

-- Ali A. Allawi, who served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003 in a new book, "The Occupation of Iraq." Today, Allawi concludes, "America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise"

"They did it jointly because they couldn't stand her anymore"

-- A source in the office of Minnesota's U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose, where four of her top aides resigned management positions reportedly to send a signal to Washington that she is incompetent. Paulose, whose management style included quoting Bible verses, was formerly a special assistant to Alberto Gonzales. "This is a decapitation of the office," the source told the Pioneer Press, April 6, 2007. "I've never heard of anything like this. People work all their lives to be at these high levels in the office. This is an extraordinary event."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

-- The illogical zen of Doug Feith, as revealed in a newly declassified presentation that Feith's office used to "prove" Iraq-Al-Qaeda links in 2002. The same slide claimed that the intel community was making a mistake assuming "secularists and Islamists will not cooperate, even when they have common interests," a prediction that indeed came true, but with them allied against the occupation

"Actually he helped the Iraqi economy quite a bit, bought a number of carpets, in fact. And he haggled with the merchants himself, with an interpreter...it was a fairly routine stop out there, in terms of just sort of strolling through a market, albeit with, you know, squads of guys out there in that marketplace"

-- General David Petraeus on John McCain's visit to a Baghdad market. NPR, April 4, 2007

"They were just making fun of us and paid this visit just for their own interests. Do they think that when they come and speak few Arabic words in a very bad manner, it will make us love them? This country and its society have been destroyed because of them and I hope that they realized that during this visit"

-- Jaafar Moussa Thamir, a storekeeper at Baghdad's Shorja market, where Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham (R-S Carolina) visited Apr. 1 protected by over 100 soldiers. "We went to the market and were just really warmly welcomed. I bought five rugs for five bucks," Graham later told reporters. Thamir quote from AP, April 3, 2007

"The base isn't interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush. If Bush said tomorrow, we're leaving in two months, there would be no revolt"

-- Grover Norquist on the devolution of the GOP into a Bush cult. April 3, 2007, American Prospect

"I served 29 years. How many did you serve? Where did you teach the Geneva Conventions?"

-- Army Colonel Ann Wright (ret.) to Bill O'Reilly on The Factor, March 30, 2007, shortly before O'Reilly ordered the producer to "Cut her mic." Wright was invited as a guest to talk about the Iran hostage situation and the Geneva Conventions, which she taught to troops at Fort Bragg, but O'Reilly turned hostile when she urged diplomacy. During the segment, the Fox News crawl banner evolved from "U.S. Army (Ret.) Col. Ann Wright" to "Col. Ann Wright retired from State Dept. in opposition to Iraq war" and ended with "Anti-war activist Col. Ann Wright"

"People learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto"

-- Newt Gingrich, calling for an end of bilingual education and multi-language ballots at a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women, March 31, 2007

"When you fall in love like that and then you notice some things that don't exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say 'No no, no, it'll be different.' "

-- Matthew Dowd, a disillusioned former member of Bush's inner circle and the 2004 chief campaign strategist. Dowd told the NY Times April 1, 2007, that he saw Bush's views hardening with the reinforcement of his inner circle. "I really like him, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in things. I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in"

"Where can we live after such an attack? What about my children? There is no police. No life"

-- Khalil Ibrahim, a schoolteacher in Tal Afar, where at least 220 were killed this week in suicide bomb attacks and a revenge massacre by Iraqi police. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 29, 2007. "See, if you're a resident of Tal Afar today, this is what you're going to see: You see that the terrorist who once exercised brutal control over every aspect of your city has been killed or captured, or driven out, or put on the run. You see your children going to school and playing safely in the streets. You see the electricity and water service restored throughout the city. You see a police force that better reflects the ethnic and religious diversity of the communities they patrol... The example of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy." -- President Bush almost exactly a year earlier, on March 20, 2006

"Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch"

-- March 29, 2007 Washington Post op/ed by Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the NYU School of Law on the Bush administration excuse for firing or downranking U.S. attorneys. "Allegations of voter fraud -- someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote -- have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom... But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud"

"I have to admit we really blew the way we let those attorneys go. You know you've lost it when people sympathize with lawyers"

-- President Bush, sharing a yuk about possibly impeachable offenses at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, March 28, 2007

"I think if the president would agree for his close advisers in the White House to testify before Congress under oath, he'd be making a huge mistake. There is a thing called executive privilege"

-- Sen. Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) on "Fox News Sunday," March 25, 2007. "I think they've made a mistake by [invoking executive privilege]. I think it will damage the credibility. It looks like they are hiding something." -- Sen. Lott on NBC's "Meet the Press" almost exactly nine years earlier, on March 22, 1998. Later the same day, Lott said of the Clinton White House: "I think for the first time they're doing some things that looks like what happened in Watergate, and they may wish they had not done that before it's over"

"We do serve at the pleasure of the president. But in this case, it looks like the authority was delegated down through Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Judge Gonzales and all the way down to a bunch of 35-year-old kids who got in a room together and tried to decide who was the most loyal to the president"

-- Fired Arkansas U.S. attorney Bud Cummins on CBS's "Face the Nation," March 25, 2007

"We have clearly a situation where the president has lost the confidence of the American people in his war effort. It is now time, going into the fifth year of that effort, for the Congress to step forward and be part of setting some boundaries and some conditions as to our involvement"

-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) on ABC's "This Week," March 25, 2007. "This is not a monarchy. There are ways to deal with it. And I would hope the president understands that"

"A lot in American politics is up for grabs"

-- Karl Rove at an April 7, 2006 speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association, where he also listed 11 states that he believed would be pivotal in next year's elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005. McClatchy Newspapers, March 23, 2007

"This is a failed policy wrapped in illusion. We don't have the troops, we don't have a strategic reserve to be able to react to a future national threat to this great country. The troops can only do so much"

-- Tearful Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn) as the House voted for a timeline to remove troops from Iraq. "We're gonna make a difference with this bill, we're gonna bring those troops home, we're gonna start changing the direction of this great country," he said, March 23, 2007, to a standing ovation

"Let me submit to you the problem we have today is not that we didn't listen enough to people like The Washington Post. It's that we listened too much. They endorsed going to war in the first place. They helped drive the drumbeat that drove almost two-thirds of the people in this chamber to vote for that misbegotten, stupid, ill-advised war that has destroyed our influence over a third of the world"

-- Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin), comment on a March 23, 2007 Post op/ed critical of the House Democrats' Iraq pullout legislation. "...we're going to end the permanent long-term dead-end babysitting service. That's what we're trying to do. And if The Washington Post is offended about the way we do it, that's just too bad," said Obey

"This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works"

-- Four-star Gen. Tony McPeak (retired), former USAF chief of staff and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. McPeak added, at a panel discussing Iraq in the March 22, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone, "America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference"

"The campaign goes on; the campaign goes on strongly...we know from our previous experience that when this happens, you have a choice: You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can be tough and go out there and stand up for what you believe in. And both of us are committed to the cause, we're committed to changing this country that we love so much. And we have no intention of cowering in the corner"

-- John Edwards, March 22, 2007

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, well I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem. If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action"

"My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for presidents to get good decisions. If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served"

-- President Bush, March 20, 2007. "Persons talking with the President would [not] ... want to advance tentative ideas that might later seem unsound... I shall continue to oppose efforts which would set a precedent that would cripple all future Presidents by inhibiting conversations between them and those they look to for advice" -- President Nixon, August 15, 1973

"It's because the Iraqi army is so scared that we have to come here to die"

-- A 9th Cavalry Regiment vehicle commander on Baghdad patrol after learning their deployment in Iraq could be extended. "95% of Iraqis are good but 5% are bad. But the 95% are too weak to stand up to the 5%." AFP, March 19, 2007

"I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day"

-- Kadhim al-Jubouri, leader of the crowd that famously toppled the Saddam statue in Baghdad in 2003. Guardian/UK March 19, 2007

"I got called a commie. A lot of middle fingers are going up. I try to respond with a peace sign"

-- Bethany Louisos, among the anti-war protesters in Washington DC Mar. 17 forced to pass a gauntlet of obscenity-shouting and sometime violent anti-march demostrators, with signs that included, "Go to hell traitors" and "Peace Sucks." Counter-protester Angie Frederick told the Washington Post, March 18, 2007 "There was a lot of cussing, but we also sang the national anthem"

"Either I'm a genius, or I'm an idiot. Only an idiot would spread trash like that and expect to do their candidate any good"

-- Karl Rove, insisting at a March 16, 2007 appearance in Troy, Alabama that it was "absolutely not true" that the Bush/Cheny campaign was behind an infamous dirty trick against John McCain in 2000, when the Senator held a 19-point lead over the heavily favored Bush before the crucial South Carolina primary. McCain lost after an anonymous telephone "push poll" called voters to ask if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. "The Bush campaign endeavored to stamp out those kinds of things because they hurt George Bush and helped John McCain, not the other way around," Rove said, adding, "I take offense"

"While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence. I loved my career, because I love my country. I was proud of the serious responsibilities entrusted to me as a CIA covert operations officer"

-- Valerie Plame Wilson, concisely debunking right-wing media spin that she was not a real covert agent, which would make those who revealed her identity guilty of treason. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform testimony, March 16, 2007

"I know it is against American Constitution, against American law. But they said every law, they have exceptions, this is your bad luck you have been part of the exception of our laws"

-- Khalid Sheik Mohammed on U.S. human rights violations of prisoners. According to the transcript released as part of his March 10, 2007 tribunal hearing, he also admitted he and others are enemies of America, but "[I] ask you to be fair with people." The confessed 9/11 planner has endured lengthy waterboarding sessions and had his 7 and 9 year-old sons kidnapped by the CIA for interrogation

"[I'd ask] Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War?"

-- Max Cleland, former senator and former VA director, picking the one question he would ask Cheney. He also said on CNN, March 12, 2007, "If you had have gone to Vietnam like the rest of us, maybe you would have learned something about war. You can't keep troops on the ground forever. They've got to have a mission. They've got to have a purpose. You can't keep sending them back and back and back with no mission and no purpose"

"It's the worst of Bush -- it's intense loyalty for all the wrong reasons. There will be other things that come up, and we don't have a guy in whom we can trust"

-- A GOP adviser to the White House speaking to the Washington Post, March 11, 2007, about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "This attorney general doesn't have anybody's confidence"

"He was offering me a deal: you stay silent and the attorney general won't say anything bad about you"

-- Former U.S. attorney John McKay on a telephone call from a "clearly nervous" top Justice official, Michael Elston, asking if he intended to speak to the press about his firing. Another fired attorney said Elston threatened the Justice Dept. would "pull their gloves off" if the fired attorneys didn't keep quiet. Newsweek, March 19, 2007 issue

"Good decision-making requires creating an environment where people can walk in and tell you what's on their mind. The problem with the Oval Office, it is the kind of place where people stand outside and say, I'm going to walk in and tell him what for; they walk in, and they're overwhelmed by the environment, and they say, man, you're looking beautiful today, Mr. President -- precisely the kind of environment that is not good for making decisions"

-- President Bush, March 7, 2007

"We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war"

-- Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Florida), former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, admitting he had personally witnessed patient abuses at Walter Reed Hospital for years, but kept quiet to avoid embarrassing the military. Congressional Quarterly, March 7, 2007

"If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security"

-- Zell Miller, former Democratic Senator from Georgia, denouncing a woman's right to abortion at a March 6, 2007 fund raiser for Sav a Life Center of Macon, Georgia. "How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years?" Miller asked. "Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We're too few because too many of our babies have been killed"

"What are we doing with this guy? Where's Rove? Were are these other bad guys? It seemed like Libby was the fall guy"

-- "Scooter" Libby jury spokesman Dennis Collins at a post-trial press conference, March 6, 2007. Collins added, "Some jurors commented 'this sucks' for Libby"

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes"

-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Esquire magazine, March 6, 2007

"They weren't just attacking my opponent -- they were, bit by bit, destroying a reputation that I had spent years and years building"

-- Ray Meier, among several 2006 Republican candidates angry over attack ads on his opponent produced by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The NRCC, which refused to pull the ads even if asked by their own candidates, spent $77 million attacking Democrats while spending $6.6 million in positive ads boosting Republicans, according to the Boston Globe, March 4, 2007

"I don't want to be caught in the quicksand of this ancient civil war, because we can't fix that"

-- Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon), who has visited Iraq twice, most recently in May. Smith told a GOP audience that both times he saw the same thing: U.S. troops would go out, "shoot it up" and come back to the Green Zone, often missing a soldier. "That's what I don't support any more," Smith said. "Tactics that don't equal victory." The Oregonian also reported, March 3, 2007, that Smith said he recently spoke with new top general in Iraq David Petraeus, who told him the troop surge has only a 1 in 4 chance of succeeding

"I have been called -- my kids are all aware of this -- dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun, and I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly"

-- Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 2, 2007

"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane?"

-- Newt Gingrich at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 3, 2007

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards"

-- Ann Coulter at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 2, 2007

"We didn't create the war in Iraq. We didn't create the war on terror"

-- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 1, 2007

"You know what? If the Democrats don't use their power, when we're in the majority in both houses, we're going to start owning this war. It is George Bush's war"

-- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) on MSNBC, March 1, 2007

"The scene is very tense. They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis. But they're still trying to figure out what's the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they're thinking, what does he mean?"

-- A former senior administration official familiar with the efforts of U.S. commander in Iraq General Petraeus and his "Baghdad brains trust" to fix the country within six months. UK/Guardian, March 1, 2007

"I know that you were not drafted -- you volunteered. You went to Vietnam. You were wounded. Highly decorated. Senator, you're a hero. And there isn't anybody or anything that's going to take that away from you. But yet 527s tried to"

-- Major GOP contributor Sam Fox, nominated to be ambassador to Belgium, to Senator John Kerry at February 27, 2007 Senate hearings. Fox donated $50,000 to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" in 2004 to smear Kerry. Under intense questioning from Kerry, Fox justified the donation as needed to combat liberal 527 groups like MoveOn.org: "I did it because politically, it's necessary if the other side is doing it"

"We volunteered to make a difference, not just be part of an experiment"

-- Sgt. Ronn Cantu, reminding 60 Minutes, February 25, 2007, that the Iraqis aren't the only ones endangered by the chaos of their civil war. "Our lives are hanging in the balance of a flip of a coin"

"This president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11"

-- Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on CNN's Late Edition, February 25, 2007. Hersh says the U.S. is funding Sunni jihadist groups connected to al Qaeda because they "want to take on Hezbollah"

"My complaint about this is what you're listening to when you hear [CNN's Anderson Cooper] lecture the audience, is you're listening to news-guy snobbery. Essentially saying, 'I'm better than you. I know what you want to hear about, but I'm better than that story. I'm too high class for that story. I won't stoop to what you want to hear about.' I'm not playing that. People want to hear about the Anna Nicole story, I'm happy to tell them"

-- Fox News host John Gibson, mocking other journalists for war coverage. The John Gibson Show, February 23 2007

"Keep in mind this is the same guy that said we'd be greeted as liberators, the same guy that said that we're in the last throes. I'm sure he forecast sun today"

-- Senator Barack Obama, on the Vice President's comments that Britain's decision to pull troops from Iraq is a sign that the situation in Iraq is improving. "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems," Obama said, February 23, 2007

"Remember, more than half the rooms were actually perfectly OK"

-- Army surgeon general Lt. General Kevin Kiley, putting the best possible spin on the shocking reports of mold, cockroaches, rat infestation, and holes in walls at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. PBS Newshour February 21, 2007

"I think clearly we're in a period of warming. Where there does not appear to be a consensus, where it begins to break down, is the extent to which that's part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it's caused by man, greenhouse gases, et cetera"

-- Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming in a February 23, 2007 ABC News interview, where he later said, "I'm not a scientist. I talk with people who supposedly know something about it. You get conflicting viewpoints." A recent survey of Congressional Republicans found that only 13% thought humans were the cause of global warming, down ten percent from the same survey taken a year ago

"If Fergus Cullen has the courage of his convictions, he should go enlist, because they're having trouble meeting their quota. He's young, he's single and he's healthy. If he needs to know where the recruiters are, call me"

-- Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-New Hampshire) challenging the state's GOP Chairman after he made several swipes at her opposition to the war. Concord Monitor, February 21, 2007

"There's a cloud over the vice president. We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud's there because the defendant obstructed justice. That cloud is something you just can't pretend isn't there"

-- Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's closing arguments to the "Scooter" Libby jury, February 20, 2007

"We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously"

-- Sen. John McCain at a February 19, 2007 campaign appearance. "I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history"

"This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country"

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on CNN, February 18, 2007. Asked whether he considers it a worse blunder than Vietnam, Reid responded, "Yes"

"Our mission now is to support the commander in chief"

-- Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 15, 2007. Schoomaker also said that the U.S. military is "in a dangerous period" because it is so overstretched in Iraq that it would be unable to respond to other conflicts, adding that his Chinese counterpart has made it clear that China is scrutinizing U.S. capabilities

"I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top"

-- Al Neuharth, USA TODAY founder, apologizing for criticizing Hillary Clinton last President's Day for saying the "[Bush] administration will go down in history as one of the worst." At that time Neuharth rated the 5 worst presidents, adding, "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list." February 16, 2007

"There is an air of suspense throughout the city, expectation if you will, and we believe there's no question about it -- many of these extremists are laying low and watching to see what it is we do and how we do it"

-- Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of Multi-National Division Baghdad, on the quiet first day of the crackdown. "We do not believe that that is going to continue... this enemy, they understand lethality and they have a thirst for blood like I have never seen anywhere before," Fil told reporters in a February 16, 2007 videoconference from Baghdad

"I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory. I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?"

-- Georgia state Rep. Ben Bridges, who is linked to a group that seeks a ban on teaching evolution. A memo sent under his name states, "so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate 'creation scenario" of the Pharisee Religion. This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic 'holy book' Kabbala." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 15, 2007

"There is a seasonal character to the war in Afghanistan, and there always has been. You know, we call it a 'spring offensive.' They call it 'spring' "

-- David Kilcullen, chief strategist in the State Department Counter-Terrorism Office, poo-poohing the 10,000 Taliban forces amassing in the southern part of the country. "Every spring, someone is launching an offensive," he told RFE/RL, February 15, 2007

"I fear that radical Muslims who want to control the Middle East and ultimately the world would love to see 'In God We Trust' stricken from our money and replaced with 'In Muhammad We Trust' "

-- Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) speaking during the February 15, 2007 House debate on Iraq. In December, Goode attacked Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison's (D-Minnesota) election, warning that "if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office"

"I know a lot of people are complaining about that, but a lot of people are also watching"

-- CNN's Wolf Blitzer, blaming the victim for cable news' fixation on the death of Anna Nicole Smith. According to a Project for Excellence in Journalism study, coverage filled half of the entire newshole for February 8-9. "Her death was tabloid gold and apparently, we just couldn't help ourselves," Blitzer told PEJ

"This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily. If we let Democrats force us into a debate on the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose"

-- Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) February 13, 2007 letter to House colleagues, warning that Republicans "lose" if accountability becomes an issue

"When a fossil fuel company refuses to become an energy company and bamboozles the public with advertisements such as 'you call CO2 pollution, we call it life,' it is time to stop patronizing that company. When a politician accepts money from fossil fuel interests and then describes global warming as 'a great hoax,' it is time to draw attention to that and help vote him out. When our government stands on the side of polluters in court and connives with industries to continue pollution, characterizing it as a 'clear skies' policy, it is time to help draw attention to the truth"

-- NASA Institute for Space Studies chief James Hansen on accepting the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal, November 21, 2006

"Cheney was almost a deputy president with a shadow operation. He had his own source of advice. He had his own source of access. He was making his own decisions"

-- NYU professor Paul Light, an expert in the bureaucracy of the executive branch, on what the Scooter Libby trial has revealed about Cheney's office. "What didn't he touch? It's almost like there was almost nothing too trivial for the vice president to handle," he told AP, February 11, 2007

"We are very fortunate to have President Bush. Presidents ... have to make decisions and move the country forward, and that's the kind of president I would like to be"

-- Rudy Giuliani, at the California GOP convention, where he also said Bush will have "a very strong place in history." San Francisco Chronicle, February 11, 2007

"The late Murray Kempton once described editorial writers as 'the people who come down from the hill after the battle to shoot the wounded.' Nowadays, media analysts are the guys who follow behind them, going through the pockets of the dead looking for loose change"

-- LA Times media columnist Tim Rutten on the media frenzy over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, February 10, 2007

"Next week we are going to steal their mascot and short-sheet their beds"

"I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas"

-- Karl Rove, explaing the Bush amnesty/open-borders proposal at a Republican women's luncheon. White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino later said his remark was taken out of context, that Rove really meant every parent wants their child to have a high-skilled, high-wage job. Rove quoted in National Review Online, February 9, 2007

"Let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it"

-- National Review Online Editor Jonah Goldberg, February 8, 2005, challenging Mideast scholar Dr. Juan Cole to a $1,000 put-up or shut-up wager

"For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, because they're very brave with the terrorists. I mean, if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad"

-- Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), pointing out that at least 322 language specialists with "some skills in an important foreign language such as Arabic, Farsi and Korean" had been discharged from the military for being gay. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings, February 7, 2007

"[Bush's neo-con advisers] are effectively saying, 'Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are' "

-- Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one of the most influential Republicans in the country in the March 2007 Vanity Fair

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?"

-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), on learning that the U.S. shipped $4 billion from the oil-for-food program funds to Iraq in cash. The money was loaded on giant pallets and delivered at the end of 2003 and early 2004. An audit the following year found that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries. House Government Reform Committee hearings, February 6, 2007

"There has been no cop on the beat, and when there is no cop on the beat, criminals are more willing to engage in crimes"

-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. Waxman also told the NY Times, February 5, 2007, "I don't think we've ever seen the magnitude of money that's being wasted through fraud and abuse and just pure lack of competence. There are criminal investigations going on right now about fraud, about billions of taxpayer dollars"

"[The public wants] legislation that says that here's a time frame during which this war needs to end, let's say six months from the enactment of the bill, and that the Congress is going to cut off the funding for the war. If we, as Democrats, don't start talking like that, and respond to what the public really thinks, then we're only going to have ourselves to blame for the Republican ability to sort of finesse this and massage it"

-- Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) on MSNBC, February 5, 2007. "[Our proposal] wouldn't take away their equipment. That's just one of the red herrings or phony arguments that the Republicans use, and usually effectively scare the Democrats into not standing up for what is right, and that is to end this mistaken war and get back to fighting the real issue, which is those that attacked us on 9/11"

"Molly didn't have readers; she had a constituency. She was such a sucker for the little guy who stood up against the bullies and the bastards"

-- Lou Dubose, co-author of two books with Molly Ivins at her memorial service. Billy Porterfield also recalled when he and Ivins encountered the Harlem Globetrotters outside a bar. "She was a good-looking woman, and one of them walked up behind her and pinched her bottom," Porterfield said. "But she thought I did it, so she turned around and punched me. She knocked out two of my teeth. I never had them replaced, because it was such a good story." Austin American-Statesman, February 5, 2007

"The resolution [to go to war] was a resolution that authorized the president to take that action if he deemed it necessary. Had I been more true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively. I had a tough time reconciling doing that against the duties of majority leader in the House. I would have served myself and my party and my country better, though, had I done so"

-- Former House majority leader Dick Armey, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 4, 2007

"This whole thing is totally misleading. They're not even stranded on an ice floe that's broken apart. They're just out there just playing around. They're just out there. You know, just like your cat goes to its litter box. When's the last time your cat got stranded in its litter box?"

-- Rush Limbaugh on accounts of polar bears drowning after being trapped on melting arctic ice floes. February 2, 2007

"I like to be around people that keep expectations low"

-- President Bush, congratulating the underdog NHL champion Carolina Hurricanes. UPI, February 2, 2007

"People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory"

-- Army Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader who says it's known that Sadr's Mehdi Army has heavily infiltrated the U.S-trained Iraqi police and army units. "Half of them are [Mehdi Army]. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," he told the McClatchy newspapers, February 1, 2007

"This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child"

-- Mary Cheney, objecting to Wolf Blitzer asking her father what he thought of administration supporters like Dobson's Focus on the Family criticizing her pregnancy. Dobson, who wrote a "Two Mommies Is One Too Many" op/ed last month in TIME, is widely credited as delivering key votes for Bush/Cheney that decided the 2004 election. Although she ran her father's side of the reelection campaign, she told the NY Times, January 31, 2007, "[Dobson]'s not someone whose endorsement I have ever drastically sought"

"You know that the [Jane] Fondas and [Sean] Penns are going to say, 'Listen, I'm as American as you are'...And I'm willing to give them the benefit of that doubt. I don't want to say that they're anti-American"

-- Bill O'Reilly, January 29, 2007 edition of The O'Reilly Factor. A few minutes earlier, text shown during O'Reilly's "Talking Points" had referred to Penn as "anti-American actor Sean Penn"

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"

"It was a big 'so what.' It was like a lot of things that I said to the press. It had no impact"

-- Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, testifying at the "Scooter" Libby trial that he had trouble getting reporters interested in his untrue tip about CIA operative Valerie Plame being responsible for sending her husband to Niger. Fleischer said he had just recently learned of Plame's secret identity from Libby and Dan Bartlett. January 29, 2007

"The idea that somehow I was trying to needle the Democrats, it's just -- gosh, it's probably Texas. Who knows what it is? But I'm not that good at pronouncing words anyway"

-- President Bush, denying he meant to insult anyone with his reference to "the Democrat majority" in the State of the Union speech. "I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town," he also innocently proclaimed in an NPR interview, January 29, 2007

"The United States has no strategic interest in the fact that there's one Iraq, or three Iraqs"

-- Former UN envoy John Bolton, neatly tossing away the very last possible justifications for the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. Interview with Le Monde translated in the International Herald Tribune, January 29, 2007

"I don't see this enemy as needing any more emboldening or getting it from any resolution. They're emboldened now"

-- Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) on Fox News Sunday, January 28, 2007, after Joe Lieberman repeated the White House claim that foes of Iraq war escalation are emboldening terrorists.

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format"

-- Cathie Martin, former Cheney communications director on 2004 White House plans to spin the reporting on the Plamegate scandal. Jurors were shown her notes at the time with a list of pros and cons of Cheney agreeing to an interview with Tim Russert. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message." Washington Post, January 26, 2007

"I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'"

-- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking Bush about his plans to escalate the number of troops in Iraq, although he had tried it twice before and it failed both times. She told CBS News, January 25, 2007, that the President answered, "Because I told them it had to"

"I don't think we've ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan.... There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives"

-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, January 24, 2007

"The question I asked in 1971 is still relevant today: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake? "How many of you around this table believe what's happpening there [in Iraq] is a mistake?"

-- Sen. John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, January 24, 2007

"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb. I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected"

-- I. Lewis Libby's attorney Theodore Wells, recounting for the jury what Libby told Cheney as the Plamegate investigation heated up in 2003. January 23, 2007

"As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. 'When comes the end?' asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end...tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way"

-- Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) closing of the Democratic response to the 2007 State of the Union speech, January 23, 2007

"It's so irresponsible that they can't be quiet for six or nine months"

-- Neo-con pundit Bill Kristol on Iraq war critics. Fox News Sunday, January 21, 2007

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it. 'We can't do it to Haley (Barbour) because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana'"

-- Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, revealing that the White House considered placing the federal government in charge of all emergency services for Louisiana, but not Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina. AP, January 20, 2007

"I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike, you're talking about a war against Iran"

-- Wayne White, a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005. "We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets," he told Reuters, January 19, 2007, adding that plans include taking out Iranian firghter jets, submarines, and anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability

"I don't think he understands the world. I don't think he's particularly curious about the world. I don't think he reads like he says he does"

-- Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W Virginia) on Bush. "Every time he's read something he tells you about it, I think," he told the New York Times, January 19, 2007

"The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way"

-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ABC's "Good Morning America," January 19, 2007

"There is no express grant of habeas [corpus] in the Constitution"

-- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the January 18, 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. When confronted on his lack of knowledge on Constitutional basics, Gonzales spun in dialectical circles by claiming that stating habeas corpus can't be taken away (Article I) is different than explicitly granting it

"They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy"

-- Comedian Rich Little, who will entertain at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner. The 70s-era impersonator told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 17, 2007, that organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq,'" Little vowed

"As it got to the Vice-President's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil'... reasserted itself"

-- Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, on a secret 2003 letter sent by Iran shortly after the invasion of Iraq offering everything the Bush admin now demands: cut off aid to Hezbollah and Hamas and full transparency on its nuclear program. BBC interview, January 17, 2007

"I don't quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg, where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg... you know, if I didn't believe we could keep the egg from fully cracking, I wouldn't ask 21,000 kids - additional kids to go into Iraq to reinforce those troops that are there"

-- President Bush, running amok with the metaphor that Iraq might be a "broken egg." PBS Newshour, January 16, 2007

"We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem. We are being played like a pawn"

-- An American military official in Baghdad involved in negotiations over the mission of additional U.S. troops in Iraq. New York Times, January 15, 2007

"I fully understand [Congress] could try to stop me from doing it, but I made my decision, and we're going forward"

-- President Bush on the escalation of U.S. troops in Iraq. 60 Minutes, January 14, 2007

"You are proposing a mixture of national police, national army and U.S. military to operate out of neighborhood police stations to go into neighborhoods and apprehend criminals and to begin to clear and build. And you have not the slightest idea of how many days, weeks or months this is going to take. What on earth leads you, or the President to believe this will work anywhere in the world?"

-- Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) chairman of the Armed Forces subcommittee at January 12, 2007 hearings

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher"

-- Frosty Hardison, who won a ban on showing Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" at any school in Federal Way, Washington. Hardison, a parent of seven who believes the Earth is 14,000 years old, also told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 11, 2007, "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is...The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD"

"When we say the strategy is new, we mean we -- us and the Iraqis -- weren't doing it before, say, November 7"

-- A White House official, noting that all of the core ideas in Bush's "new direction" for Iraq were found in a memo from national security adviser Stephen Hadley distributed on Nov. 8, the day after the elections. Washington Post, January 11, 2007

"It's viewed as a temporary surge, but I think no one has a really clear idea of how long that might be"

-- Secretary of Defense Gates, January 11, 2007 press conference

"This is a reckless plan -- it is about saving the Bush presidency, not about saving Iraq"

-- Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), January 10, 2007. "The Bush Administration has called this a 'surge,' but make no mistake -- this is not a surge; it is an escalation"

"She constantly gets a pass. Who knows if the whole question of race and gender come into it, but ... I can't account for it, except to say she isn't up to the mark"

-- Rep. Neil Abercrombie, new chairman of the Armed Forces subcommittee, on Secretary of State Rice. Abercrombie also told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 9, 2007, that Rice was "the most overrated, underperforming individual in executive authority that I have ever seen"

" Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam"

-- Senator Edward Kennedy at National Press Club, January 9, 2007. "In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next. There was no military solution to that war. Echoes of that disaster are all around us today"

"I don't understand what he thinks is going on in Iraq, but whatever it is, he doesn't care about politics or the Congress or his successor when it comes to Iraq. He wants to either win the war or, since that is an impossibility, pass it on to his successor"

-- Richard Holbrooke, UN ambassador in the Clinton administration. Washington Post, January 9, 2007

"I think what happened was, is, we overestimated the availability of Iraqi security forces initially; we didn't have enough here. So we have to be able to make sure we have enough forces, Iraqi and coalition, in order to do it this time"

-- Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the new #2 commander in Iraq, revealing the new Bush plan is to embrace the playground rule of unlimited do-overs. Washington Post, January 8, 2007

"No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed. They turned him into a martyr"

-- Egyptian president Mubarak, quoted in the New York Times, January 5, 2007. "The Arab world has been devoid of pride for a long time," Ahmad Mazin al-Shugairi, TV news host in Saudi Arabia. "The way Saddam acted in court and just before he was executed, with dignity and no fear, struck a chord with Arabs who are desperate for their own leaders to have pride too"

"A lot of conservatives are already hammering Ms. Pelosi. I don't think that's fair"

-- Bill O'Reilly, January 5, 2007. A few moments later, O'Reilly told his TV audience, "Pelosi is about the most liberal woman in the world"

"A 'surge' or 'targeted increase in U.S. troop strength' or whatever the politicians want to call dispatching more combat troops to Iraq isn't the answer. Adding more trainers and helping the Iraqis to help themselves, is. Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets"

-- Oliver North in Human Events column, January 5, 2007

"If we surge and it doesn't work, it's hard to imagine what we do after that. "But we're already in a very bad spot, and if we don't do anything, defeat is imminent"

-- Frederick W. Kagan of the neo-con American Enterprise Institute, author of the plan to send a "surge" of U.S. forces to secure Iraq. Wall St. Journal, January 2, 2007

"[The Bush administration] thoughtlessly engineered a political and social revolution as intense as the French or Iranian one and then seemed surprised that Iraq could not digest it happily, peaceably and quickly. We did not give them a republic. We gave them a civil war"

-- Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek Jan. 8, 2007 issue

"The big question is what do they want us to do with these troops, exactly, that we're not doing already?"

-- A U.S. commander at Baghdad headquarters on the expected plan to send a "surge" of U.S. forces to secure Iraq. U.S. News & World Report, December 31, 2006

"I drove him in life, and I drove him in death. I can't say no to Mr. Brown"

-- William Murrell, James Brown's chauffeur of 15-years who drove Brown's body 800 miles after flight snafus that would have delayed a ceremony at Harlem's Apollo Theatre. Murrell drove non-stop from Georgia to Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton, the funeral home director, and Brown's 24-karat gold-plated coffin in back of his van. We talked the whole time. Old times, the good old days, all the fun that we had, all the people he touched, the lives that he changed. It went on and on." NY Daily News, December 29, 2006

"Allahu Akbar. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab"

-- Saddam Hussein's last statement. According to cameraman Ali Al Massedy who filmed the execution, Saddam also said, "Iraq without me is nothing." December 30, 2006

"Saddam Hussein was hanged until death ensued. A black page in the history of Iraq has been turned"

-- Iraq state television, December 30, 2006

"It's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure"

-- White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend, putting the best possible spin on the failure to capture Bin Laden. CNN's The Situation Room, December 28, 2006

"I can understand the theory of wanting to free people...I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security"

-- Former president Ford in a July, 2004 interview with Bob Woodward. "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer." Washington Post , December 28, 2006

"I have come to the conclusion that this is no longer America's war in Iraq, but the Iraqi civil war where America is fighting"

-- Major William Voorhies, U.S. commander of a unit training Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad. He told the NY Times December 27, 2006 that Iraqi politicians are using troops as proxies in the sectarian war

"The stress of the job -- so well hidden for much of the past six years -- has begun to show on Bush's face. He often looks burdened, distracted, haunted by a question that has no good answer"

-- Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, December 27, 2006

"Even toward the bad days of Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson still believed this war had to be fought. He couldn't argue in the end that it was working, but what he could argue to himself was that if it hadn't been fought, that somehow we would have been fighting the enemy somewhere else"

-- Presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, NY Times December 24, 2006

"I don't think a year will be long enough to break their bad habits. It gets pretty frustrating when you're hitting it every day that you're not making more progress"

-- Marine Lt. Col. Mark Winn, a U.S. military advisor to the Iraqi Army who believes the Iraqis Won't be prepared to take control next spring, or even the one after. "If we're not there, trash accumulates, nobody's shaving or wearing uniforms, and we're back where we started," Winn told the LA Times December 23, 2006

"Most women who like artificial [Christmas] trees have artificial breasts"

-- Bill O'Reilly, presumably showing his idea of a joke on The Radio Factor, December 19, 2006. "There was a study done ... at UCLA in L.A."

"From the point of view of not just the monetary cost but the sacrifice of American lives a lot has been sacrificed for Iraq, a lot has been invested in Iraq...this is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East"

-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to AP, December 19, 2006

"There's not a lot of people saying, 'Get out now.' Most Americans are saying, 'We want to achieve the objective'"

-- President Bush interview with the Washington Post, December 19, 2006. A poll taken the previous week found 55% want U.S. forces out of Iraq in year, but only 18% think it will happen

"Terrorists can't be God-believing people"

-- President Bush at the Dec. 18 White House Chanukah meeting with Jewish education leaders. JTA newswire, December 19, 2006

"He couldn't get elected to statewide office in Georgia. I cannot imagine him winning a presidential race in the United States"

-- Merle Black, a professor of government at Emory University and an authority on Southern politics on Newt Gingrich's feint that he would consider a White House bid if no strong GOP candidate emerges by next September. NY Times, December 18, 2006

"Let's be clear ... There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there, there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops"

-- Colin Powell debunking talk of sending more troops to Iraq as part of a "surge." Powell also said on "Face the Nation," December 17, 2006, the "active Army is about broken"

"If the greatest army in the world with the U.S. Marine Corps cannot handle the military situation in Baghdad, who ever thinks we could ever train the Iraqi army to do so?"

-- Newly-elected Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania), a former Navy admiral on ABC's "This Week," December 17, 2006

"I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume"

-- President Bush in People magazine interview, December 14, 2006

"He was the primary architect of the war plan. He was no scapegoat. He deserves the blame he received"

-- Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution. "I think his epitaph will be a dark one," said Justin Logan, a foreign policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute. "Rumsfeld's one-line epitaph will be, 'The man who was at the helm of the Defense Department and supported what was doomed to be a losing war effort that Americans will remember as a national tragedy.'" Associated Press, December 14, 2006

"Victory is still an option"

-- Frederick W. Kagan of the neo-con American Enterprise Institute, author of the plan to send a "surge" of U.S. forces to secure Iraq. December 14, 2006

"I think we'll see less of him than ever. Iraq is now Bush's baby, and Cheney doesn't want to be tarred with it in the eyes of historians."

-- A "former associate who worked closely with Cheney for years" on the VP's lack of public appearances since the Iraq Study Group report's release. U.S. News & World Report, December 12, 2006

"You know, it's interesting, if you take a look at poll data -- and there's a lot of discussion about that -- what's interesting is that a majority of the American public not only thinks that we're capable of winning, but we should"

-- White House press secretary Tony Snow, December 12, 2006. A LA Times/Bloomberg poll released the same day found only 26% favor Bush's option of keeping troops on the ground until Iraq secure

"You have a President that's in deep shit. He got us into the war, and all the reasons he gave have been proven invalid, and the whole electorate was so pissed off that they got rid of anyone they could have, and then they ask, 'What is the Democrats' solution?'"

-- Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), New York Observer, December 18, 2006 edition

"I don't think I would have called it the war on terror... the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way"

-- Donald Rumsfeld to columnist Cal Thomas, December 11, 2006. The former Secretary of Defense repeatedly cast it as a conventional war, such as in an August 2, 2005 address to a civic group: "[T]here has been comment in the press of late about whether or not we're even engaged in a war on terror, or whether our purpose might be better explained in a different manner. Let there be no mistake, we are a nation at war, against terrorist enemies who are seeking our surrender or our retreat. It is a war"

"It's the fault of the liberals and the media and the Democrats, that from the very beginning have tried to undermine the will of the American people to fight this"

-- Tom DeLay explaining the root cause of problems in Iraq on Hannity & Colmes, December 11, 2006

"Our Arab region is besieged by a number of dangers, as if it was a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode"

-- Saudi King Abdullah, at the opening of an Gulf Arab summit. "The condition in Palestine and the continuing Israeli aggression, the fight in Iraq where a brother is still killing his brother, and the political tussle in Lebanon that threatens to push the nation into instability are the three key issues that are of great concern." Gulf News, December 12, 2006

"The White House is totally constipated. There's not enough adult leadership, and the 30-year-olds still think it's 2000 and they're riding high"

-- A former aide quoted in Thomas DeFrank's NY Daily News column, December 10, 2006

"He's trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you're right you're unpopular, and be prepared for criticism"

-- Senate Majority Whip-elect Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) on the Dec. 8 White House meeting between Democratic members of Congress and Bush, where the president compared the war in Iraq to Truman's conflict with Communism. When Durbin challenged Bush's analogy by reminding him that Truman had NATO support and negotiated with his enemies, Durbin said, "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief." McClatchy Newspapers, December 8, 2006

"He's trying to move out of his apartment and he's making calls to get his people placed... [he said to me,] 'I'm so busy, I don't know how I'm going to be down there'"

-- Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) on best friend Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY), who only appeared on the House floor for 4 votes after losing the Nov. election. Sessions also told the Albany Times Union, December 10, 2006, his friend is "frustrated and angry" because he partially blames bad health for his defeat. During congressional trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, "A bug got into his system and lodged in his brain"

"We have a classic case of circling the wagons. If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that"

-- A former adviser to Bush the elder to U.S. News & World Report, December 8, 2006

"His reaction was, 'Where's my drink?'"

-- Former secretary of state and Iraq Study Group member Lawrence Eagleburger on Bush's reaction to the commission's White House visit. "He was a little loaded. It was early in the morning, too, you know," he told the Washington Post, December 7, 2006. Reporter Dana Milbank added, "The retired diplomat certainly did not mean that the president had fallen off the wagon"

"This is highly unusual. It's one thing for people inside the administration to tell the president what to do. But for an outside group to say, 'Here, son, let us give you a road map for your foreign policy,' that's remarkable"

-- An advisor to the Iraq Study Group, LA Times, December 7, 2006. Although Bush is not required to follow the group's recommendations, "At least, after this report, Bush will now be prevented from painting a rosy picture," the advisor said

"There he sat, surrounded by his father's friends, looking absolutely lost. And despite the years of experience and wisdom represented at that table, the report contains no magic potion to get us out of, arguably, the biggest, deadliest, costliest and potentially most dangerous mess that this country has been in since World War II. And President Bush caused it"

-- CNN commentator Jack Cafferty on "The Situation Room, December 6, 2006

"I would urge the president not to -- to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it's not about him. It's about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there"

-- Al Gore NBC interview, December 6, 2006

"Keeping us up here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says"

-- Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Georgia), dismayed that House Democrats will institute a 5-day workweek starting in January. Kingston typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays, according to the Washington Post, December 6, 2006

"For me, diplomacy and leadership went hand in hand...and you're much less apt to have 2 ships passing in the night -- dark ships passing in the night -- if you have a personal relationship with the other side"

-- Former President George Herbert Walker Bush at a private forum in honor of son Jeb. Tampa Bay 10 News, December 4, 2006

"It's unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He's merely the fifth worst"

-- Michael Lind of the New America Foundation, one of five scholars who debate whether Bush ranks at the bottom in the December 3, 2006 Washington Post. Another said Bush ties with Hoover, and another insisted Nixon holds the record. The remaining pair waffled that it's too early to tell

"If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison -- that they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child again?"

-- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, BBC interview, December 3, 2006. On the question of whether the Iraq conflict should be called 'civil war,' Annan said, "When we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war -- this is much worse"

"I am baffled by what I saw. This was an expression of the Americans in deep trouble, but Bush's approach to dealing with the Iraqi problem also bore the signs of someone out of touch with what is going on"

-- Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, one of several Arab analysts who expressed dismay at Bush's apparent unwillingness to change strategy in Iraq during the summit in Jordan. "I did not see a coherent strategy that really deals with the situation," he told the NY Times, November 30, 2006, "I did not see Bush realizing how bad it is"

"Would you have allowed him to choose, you know, Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is the Nazi bible? In other words, where does this stop?"

-- Sean Hannity, outraged that incoming Rep. Keith Ellison's (D-Minnesota) reportedly intendes to be sworn in using the Koran instead of the Bible. Hannity & Colmes, November 30, 2006

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all"

-- President George W. Bush, November 30, 2006. "I'm a realist because I understand how tough it is inside of Iraq," he added

"It was going to be more of a social meeting anyways"

-- White House counselor Dan Bartlett, downplaying the surprise last-minute cancellation of a meeting between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, November 29, 2006. Earlier that day a Nov. 8 memo surfaced written by national security adviser Stephen Hadley. "His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans... but the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action"

"My thoughts on the president's representations are well-known. The 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again"

-- House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, on Bush continuing to blame Iraqi insurgent violence on al-Qaeda

" 'Stay the course' is gone. We're going to try and devise some new strategies, hopefully with the President's concurrence. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen should not be in there, risking their lives, losing their lives to stop a Civil War"

-- Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia), outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at a November 27, 2006 Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce meeting. The following day, Bush declared, "There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete"

"I think Bush is the last neo-con in power. The truth is, it was always Bush"

-- Neo-con pundit Bill Kristol in Newsweek, Dec. 4, 2006 issue

"We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands"

-- King Abdullah of Jordan, running down the list of Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine on ABC's "This Week," November 26, 2006

"The allegations against Russia in this respect are nothing but nonsense. Nothing but nonsense. It's really nonsense and it's so silly and unbelievable that it is not worth commenting on by officials"

"I think that's weird and it's nuts. To suggest that everything we do is because we're hungry for money, I think that's crazy. I think you need to go back to school"

-- George HW Bush, confronted by a student in Abu Dhabi who charged that U.S. war goals were to expand globalization for the profit of American companies. AP also reported, November 21, 2006, that Bush appeared "stunned" when a woman said that there is no respect for President Bush. "My son is an honest man," he replied

"Almost every comedy show or satire show I see uses the same talking points against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The other side hasn't been skewered in a fair and balanced way"

-- Joel Surnow, co-creator of "24," who is shooting two half-hour pilots for a Fox News comedy program he describes as "'The Daily Show' for conservatives," Forbes, November 19, 2006

" There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way"

-- Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who will propose a return to the military draft in the next Congress. "Face the Nation", November 19, 2006

" There are a lot of lives that are lost. A country's at stake. A region's at stake. This is a gigantic situation. . . . This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful"

-- Kenneth Adelman, the former member of the Cheney-Rumsfeld brain trust, who wrote in Feb. 2002 that "liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Washington Post, November 19, 2006

" The people who complain always get the headlines... this strategy not only works, it works in states Democrats have given up on for 30 years. We cannot give up on anybody"

-- Democratic party chairman Howard Dean, who was hammered by Clinton strategist James Carville for not dumping more money in the election in hopes of gaining a larger congressional majority. "It was a great win for what I call the new Democratic Party," Dean also said at a November 17, 2006 getaway for party leaders, who gave Dean a vote of confidence resolution

"Now look, God's still up there. We still have these natural changes, and this is what's going on right now. New science comes out... they came out with a great discovery just a few weeks ago. And this came from the geophysical research letters and you know what they said? Hold on now! They said the warming is due to the sun. Isn't that remarkable?"

-- Global warming nay-sayer and outgoing chairman of the Senate environment committee James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) on Fox and Friends, November 17, 2006. "The other side, the far left, the George Soros, the Hollywood elitists, the far left environmentalists on the committee that I chair, all of them want us to believe the science is settled and it's not"

"When you get to that degree of obfuscation, then you get a little depressed"

-- Senator John McCain, remarks to a D.C. audience November 16, 2006, on the Bush administration's failure to release a NOAA report on global warming that was required to be published in 2004. "They're simply not complying with the law. It's incredible"

"You've got to remember, whatever the Democrats say, it's Bush still calling the shots. He believes it's a matter of political will. That's what Kissinger told him. And he's going to stick with it"

-- A former senior administration official to the UK/Guardian November 16, 2006. "[Bush] is in a state of denial about Iraq. Nobody else is any more. But he is. But he knows he's got less than a year, maybe six months, to make it work. If it fails, I expect the withdrawal process to begin next fall."

"Heck, even the white rednecks who go to church on Sunday didn't come out to vote for us"

-- Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Florida) on the GOP's crumbling base. The Hotline, November 16, 2006

"Three Americans killed yesterday, four British; 150 Iraqis taken out of that building and kidnapped; 1,800-plus went through that one Baghdad morgue but that doesn't count all the dead,. My displeasure with the president, he doesn't understand the urgency of this. It's all victory for him, but I don't know what that means anymore in Iraq"

-- Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Washington Post , November 15, 2006

"What do you [do,] punch little buttons and things?"

-- Larry King, revealing to Roseanne Barr November 14, 2006, that he's never used the Internet. "You just click on this thing," Barr explained. "The thing is you got to be able to read, so you have to have strong glasses when you've over 50 and then you just scroll down and click. It's not that hard. I can show you how to do it." King replied, "No, thanks"

"He knows too much. The last thing the president wants is another published memoir and book tour of life inside the White House"

-- White House source on Karl Rove's job security, November 14, 2006 Insight magazine

"When Tom [DeLay] and his bunch first ran, they campaigned against the cesspool in Washington. After a while they looked around and said, 'Hey, this isn't a cesspool, it's a hot tub'"

-- Richard Viguerie, godfather of the conservative movement. Houston Chronicle, November 12, 2006

"He's the guy who can hold the reins, get confirmed and get through the next two years without the Democrats cutting off the money"

-- A "defense source" on Bush hopes for Rumsfeld replacement Robert Gates, London Sunday Times, November 12, 2006

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose."

-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, pondering what to investigate first. Top priorities included the response to Hurricane Katrina, government contracting in Iraq and on homeland security, decision-making at the EPA and the FDA, and allegations of corporate profiteering, he told the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, November 10. 2006

"Bob Sherwood's seat [in Pennsylvania] would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn't whined about being throttled"

-- Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one of the most influential Republicans in the country. The Financial Times also asked, November 10. 2006, if there were any lessons from the campaign? "Yes. The lesson should be, don't throttle mistresses"

"They bugged us with... all her calls, Jennings, Jennings, Jennings, I wouldn't have voted for that woman if she were the only one running"

-- Betty Beatty, who voted for the Republican candidate instead of Democrat Christine Jennings in the southwestern Florida race. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent almost $60,000 for "robo-calls" in the district that deceived many voters into believing the repeated messages were coming from Jenning's campaign. Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 10. 2006

"I will say this -- it is very clear that the major combat operations were an enormous success. It's clear that in Phase II of this, it has not been going well enough or fast enough"

"Never let the new class of Democrats forget that they're there in considerable part because of the war the American public has now turned against"

-- Former senator and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. "The Democratic leadership is wise enough to know that if they're going to follow the message that election sent, they're going to have to take steps to bring the war to a conclusion...There isn't going to be any decisive victory in Iraq." AP, November 8, 2006

"I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried"

-- Rush Limbaugh, justifying deceiving his audience about Republicans "because the stakes are high." November 8, 2006. "Words mean things." -- Rush Limbaugh, 35 Undeniable Truths, 1994

"I'd call it a 'Texas whupping,' that's for sure"

-- Convicted ex-Rep. Tom DeLay on MSNBC, November 8, 2006. "Over the last couple of years we just played not to lose...we didn't fight for the things that we really believe in"

"Last week, the vice president said [that] regardless of the outcome, the administration would go full speed ahead in the same direction. Well, I think the American people have said, 'Not so fast'"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton to cheering supporters, November 7, 2006

"There would be the Iraqis who needed medicine for their dying mothers, there would be the Iraqis who told you they had nuclear documents in their basement and would you like to come and look. You know, there was almost that pang when you turned somebody away, [you were] thinking, 'Damn, maybe this guy really does have nuclear weapons in his basement, but I don't have time.' So you never really knew"

-- Jane Arraf/CNN, on the lines of Iraqis who appeared outside their doors every day after the invasion. Columbia Journalism Review oral history, "Into the Abyss"

"They didn't even mention that he's also an obnoxious jerk and a war criminal"

-- CNN "Situation Room" commentator Jack Cafferty on the "Military Times" editorials calling for Rumsfeld's ouster. November 6, 2006

"At the end of the day, this comes down to bringing Jesus into politics. Right now, it's not Ted Haggard on trial. It's Jesus"

-- David Kuo, author of "Tempting Faith" on the fall of the powerful gay-bashing evangelist. "Jim Dobson's response was particularly telling," Kuo also told TIME, November 4, 2006. "He basically blamed the controversy on gays and Democrats. When evangelical leaders can't see beyond Tuesday on any question, what on earth is happening?"

"It reeks, it really does. It just amazes me that after sixty some years, that just with the swipe of a pencil the thing could all go away"

-- Joseph Stehr, a former FBI agent and investigator for the House Appropriations Committee, whose chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) abruptly fired 60 investigators last month. Stehr, who worked on a now-stalled study of Katrina relief spending as well as on the Pentagon budget, also told CQ.com November 3, 2006, "who is going to look into all of this? GAO? I don't think so. They're slow-pitch Wiffle ball, where we throw 90 miles an hour"

"A lump of clay can become a sculpture, blobs of paint become paintings which inspire. The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents reported daily but the country that the Iraqis build"

-- Major General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman, told his weekly Baghdad news briefing, November 2, 2006. "Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition"

"[Bush] thinks that, in twenty years, he's going to be recognized for the leader he was -- the analogy he uses is Churchill. If you read the public statements of the leadership, they're so confident and so calm... It's pretty scary"

-- Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersch, McGill Daily (Canada), November 2, 2006

"For them to suggest that somebody who served their country as I did and has a record like I have in the United States Congress of standing up and fighting for the troops would ever, ever insult the troops is an insult in and of itself. And they owe us an apology for even daring to use the White House to stand up and make this an issue again. Shame on them. Shame on them. And may the American people take that shame to the polls with them next Tuesday"

-- Senator John Kerry, October 31, 2006

"The only way Bill Nelson could lose this is if he got himself in a drug-induced stupor and ran naked down the main street of his home town"

-- Darryl Paulson, a political scientist (and Republican) at the University of South Florida, on GOP Senate candidate Katherine Harris, who is 35 points behind Sen. Nelson. Harris told the Washington Post, October 31, 2006, that she is writing a tell-all about the many people who have wronged her, including the Republican leaders who didn't want her to run, the press that has covered her troubled campaign, and the many staffers who have quit her employ

"None of the Iraqi police are working to make their country better. They're working for the militias or to put money in their pocket"

-- Brig. Gen. Salah al-Ani, chief of police for the western half of Baghdad. Seventy percent of the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by militias, primarily Sadr's Mahdi Army, according to U.S. military police trainers. Washington Post, October 31, 2006

"In the past, conservatives let liberal entertainers kind of have a free ride. Now they're saying, under George W. Bush, if you get involved in politics, we're going to come after you and the Democrats you're supporting"

-- ABC News political director Mark Halperin, justifying on the October 29, 2006 edition of ABC's World News Sunday, Rush Limbaugh's mocking of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease. On Oct. 25, one-time journalist Bernard Goldberg told Bill O'Reilly, "I love Rush Limbaugh. He made one mistake that I wish he hadn't. He did that spastic dance. If he didn't do that we wouldn't be talking about Rush Limbaugh"

"There is a particular danger with a war that God commands. What if God should lose? That is unthinkable to the evangelicals"

-- Garry Wills essay, "A Country Ruled by Faith," in the November 16, 2006 issue of the NY Review of Books. "Thus, in 2006, when two thirds of the American people told pollsters that the war in Iraq was a mistake, the third of those still standing behind it were mainly evangelicals (who make up about one third of the population). It was a faith-based certitude"

"Well, Wolf, could we talk about a children's book for a minute?"

-- Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick, trying to steer an October 27, 2006 CNN interview towards her new kid's book and away from her lurid 1988 novel "Sisters," which featured attempted rapes and a Republican vice president who dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. Wolf Blitzer asked questions about her novel because the major Republican talking point that day was "demeaning descriptions of women" in 30 year-old novels by the Democratic challenger to Virginia GOP Sen. Allen

"You can read Lynne Cheney's lesbian sex scenes if you want to get graphic on stuff"

-- Jim Webb, Democratic challenger to Virginia Sen. George Allen, whose new TV ads center on "chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitative references" in Webb's Vietnam-era novels. Washington Post, October 27, 2006

"The frustration is that the definition of success has now gotten to be, how many innocent people are dying? And if there's a lot dying, it means the enemy is winning. That doesn't mean they're winning"

-- President Bush, giving a confab of conservative journalists a peek at his unclear views about "winning" and "success." He also told them, October 25, 2006, "If we can't win, I'll pull us out. If I didn't think it was noble and just and we can win, we're gone"

"Everyone knew how Rumsfeld acts, everyone knew 43 didn't have an attention span. Everyone knew Condi wouldn't be able to stand up to Cheney and Rumsfeld. We told them all of this, and we were told we don't know what we're doing"

-- A "key assistant" to President George Bush "41" on son George Bush "43." NY Daily News, October 15, 2006

"We went back and looked today and could only find eight times where he [Bush] ever used the phrase 'stay the course'"

-- White House press secretary Tony Snow on Fox News, October 24, 2006. A search of Bush press conferences, remarks, and speeches on the GPO web site turns up 52 instances, the earliest being May 2, 2003, the day after his "Mission Accomplished" speech on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln

"Well, hey, listen, we've never been 'stay the course'"

-- President Bush on ABC's This Week, October 22, 2006. Bush has repeatedly vowed to 'stay the course,' most recently on Aug. 30

"We rightly criticize that in most Islamic states, the role of religion for society and the character of the rule of law are not clearly separated. But we fail to recognize that in the USA, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies"

-- German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in his new memoirs. "What bothered me, and in a certain way made me suspicious despite the relaxed atmosphere, was again and again in our discussions how much this president described himself as 'God-fearing'"

"The higher you climb up the tree, the more your ass shows"

-- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's zen koan on the perils of politics. Allentown Morning Call, October 19, 2006

"Now that it's kind of accumulated it doesn't have as much of a shock value"

-- Max Boot, a senior fellow of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, on the U.S. media's inside-page reporting of American deaths in Iraq. "This is reminiscent of Stalin's phrase about how 'one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.' There's some truth to that." Reuters, October 20, 2006

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country"

-- General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Donald Rumsfeld. AFP, October 19, 2006

"It will make you feel better to say, I didn't lose the election; Foley lost it for me. Your wife and kids will believe it"

-- Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one of the most influential Republicans in the country, who also told the NY Times, October 19, 2006, that the Iraq war is the biggest drag on Republican candidates. "Some people think we did it just to prove we could do it, like people who go running with weights on their ankles"

"Everything our Party has achieved in the past six years is at risk of being lost in just one day"

-- Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) commentary on the October 19, 2006 Republican National Committee mailing list

"We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet...Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites"

-- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Reuters, October 17, 2006. The same day the FBI director called for ISPs to track user activity on the Internet

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S."

-- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) to Bucks County Courier Times, October 17, 2006. "You have to really question the judgment of a U.S. senator who compares the war in Iraq to a fantasy book," said Larry Smar, spokesman for Democratic opponent Bob Casey Jr.

"If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well [in Iraq]"

-- Cheney on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, October 17, 2006. The same day, it was announced that at least 91 people had been slaughtered in Balad, over 3,000 policemen accused of abuse, corruption were fired in a complete overhaul of the Iraq National Police, and Iraqi leaders debated a proposal to create a 5-man junta to rule country

"[President Bush] reminds me of one of those guys at the gym who plays about 40 chessboards at once"

-- White House press secretary Tony Snow, revealing the Bush administration's very, very, best kept secret. New York Times, October 15, 2006

"Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer"

-- Independent cum Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman, asked in the October 15, 2006 Hartford Courant whether America would be better off if the Democratic party regained control of the House of Representatives

"I see it really as a marriage of convenience. We are not without significant gains by working with this administration"

-- Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, telling the Washington Post, October 14, 2006, that he really doesn't care that Republican politicians are "dismissive," and make derisive comments behind Christian leaders' backs. The next day Perkins and other evangelists joined in a special broadcast to churches nationwide asking the faithful to turn out to vote because of threats to "people's religious liberties" such as gay marriage

"I saw probably 600 pictures of really gross, perverted stuff. The bottom line was it was sex. . . . It wasn't primarily about torture"

-- Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) on Abu Ghraib torture, quoted in The Stamford Advocate, October 13, 2006. Later the same day, Shays sought to clarify his views to AP: "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable ... This is more about pornography than torture"

"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water"

-- Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) both defending House speaker Hastert's handling of the Foley-page scandal and winning the 2006 award for most vicious election year nonsequitur. "This just makes clear the real need for change in November. Beyond that I'm not going to dignify such a desperate attack with a response," said Sen. Ted Kennedy's spokeswoman. AP, October 11, 2006

"I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to, you know, that there's a level of violence that they tolerate"

"It's a metaphor for what's going on. Hang up when somebody has a different point of view or information you don't want to deal with"

-- Author Bob Woodward, telling Meet the Press, October 8, 2006, that Cheney called him a few days earlier, angry that Woodward had used quotes from an on-the-record interview with the Vice President. Woodward said Cheney hung up on him after cursing

"Nothing says 'I am ashamed of you, my government' more than 'Stewart/Colbert '08' "

-- Jon Stewart to those at the New Yorker Festival calling for him to run for president. "[It's] a real sign of how sad people are" with the state of the country, Stewart told AP, October 8, 2006

"As a critic of the administration, I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser. No one has the right to say that about any free-speaking American in this country"

-- MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann to AP, October 8, 2006

"I have the highest respect for law enforcement. My father was a police officer"

--California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the October 7, 2006 TV debate with Democrat Phil Angelides. The governator's father, Gustav, was a volunteer member of the feared Nazi thugs known as the SA, or "brown shirts"

"This is the lens through which Iraqis will now see America: incompetence, profiteering, arrogance, and human waste oozing out of ceilings as a result "

-- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), on a federal audit that found work by U.S. contractors on the $75 million police academy in Baghdad was so shoddy that much of it much of it must be demolished. Washington Post, September 29, 2006

"This isn't an isolated situation. It is only the most recent example of Republican House leaders doing whatever it takes to hold onto power. If it means spending billions of taxpayers' dollars on questionable projects, they'll do it. If it means covering up the most despicable actions of a colleague, they'll do it"

-- Richard Viguerie, godfather of the conservative movement, calling for the immediate resignation of House GOP leaders in his newsletter, October 4, 2006

"I'm not going to take a lecture on morality from a party that took hush money from a child predator"

-- Democratic Tennessee Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford, answering GOP charges that he once attended a party where "Playboy bunnies" were present. USA Today, October 5, 2006

"Staying the course isn't good enough because a course has to have an end"

-- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell at a October 4, 2006 lecture at the University of Minnesota

"All I know is what I hear and what I see. I saw Bill Clinton's advisor, Richard Morris, was saying these guys knew about this all along"

-- House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who apparently doesn't know Clinton fired Dick Morris almost a decade ago, and that Morris has been the resident Clinton-basher on FOX News for years. In his October 5, 2006 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hastert also said of the Foley scandal, "the people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros"

"The briefing was intended to 'connect the dots' contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden"

-- An official who helped prepare a July 10, 2001 CIA briefing for then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said Oct. 1 she didn't recall "the supposed meeting," and anyway, it didn't warn about an impending attack. The official also described the tone of the report as "scary" and "10 on a scale of 1 to 10." McClatchy Newspapers October 2, 2006

"It's vile, it's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction"

-- Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida) on Bill Clinton. St. Petersburg Times, September 12, 1998

"Yeah, look, I hate to tell you but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. There have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mail"

-- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Rep. Mark Foley. In one "naughty" instant message session with an underage Congressional page, the 54 year-old Foley told the boy to measure the size of his erect penis, "gra[b] the one eyed snake," and gushed that their online chat gave him "totally stiff wood." CNN, October 2, 2006

"Congress did exercise its authority; they just did it in an unconstitutional, wrongheaded way"

-- Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), who opposed the Bush torture bill until the final senate vote, where he voted with the rest of the GOP bloc. "Congress could have done it right, and didn't," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 2006, "but the next line of defense is the court. And I think the court will clean it up"

"After the election, there will be a lot more candid observations about Iraq"

-- Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), predicting trouble for Bush war plans even if Republicans hold Congress. Newsweek, September 29, 2006

"The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public"

-- Author Bob Woodward, saying that the Bush administration is covering up the number of attacks on American forces in Iraq. "It's getting to the point now where there are 8-900 attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," he told 60 Minutes, October 1, 2006

"It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people. Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli's and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me"

-- Sen. Trent Lott (R-Mississippi), September 28, 2006

"When Sadr says you can't do this, for whatever political reason, that's when they start to go rogue"

-- A senior coalition intelligence official telling the New York Times, September 28, 2006, that Moqtada al-Sadr has lost control of as many as a third of his Mahdi Army militia. Members are splintering off into freelance death squads, criminal gangs, and are "very open to alternative sources of sponsorship," such as Iran

"He's Jewish and Monday is Yom Kippur"

-- Brynn Slate, spokeswoman for the National Association of Women Business Owners, explaining to Roll Call, September 26, 2006, why Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia) rescheduled a Senate hearing. After years of dodging media questions about his family, Allen announced just six days earlier that he had Jewish grandfather

"You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban"

-- Lead sentence of "Losing Afghanistan," the cover story found in European, Asian, and Latin American editions of Newsweek, October 2, 2006 issue.

"Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue"

-- Lead sentence of "My Life in Pictures," the cover story found in the U.S. edition of Newsweek, October 2, 2006 issue.

"I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy"

-- President Bush on CNN, September 24, 2006, just two days after the number of Americans killed in Iraq for his "historical comma" hit 2,700. Combined with soldiers killed in Afghanistan, U.S. war fatalities have now passed the 9/11 death toll

"Bush has called me worse things -- tyrant, populist dictator, drug trafficker, to name a few"

-- Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez to TIME, September 22, 2006. Earlier in the week told the UN general assembly that Bush is "the devil," and later called him an "alcoholic, a sick man with a lot of hang-ups"

"At least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now"

-- President Clinton, answering a question on "Fox News Sunday" about steps taken to kill or capture bin Laden. "If you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: after the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan -- which we got after 9/11," Clinton said on the September 24, 2006 broadcast

"[It's] just an interesting nuance to my background. I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops"

-- Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia), confirming that he had a Jewish grandfather. Allen, who always emphasized his deep Southern roots in earlier campaigns, is now calling his opponent anti-semitic for bringing the topic up. Allen is trying to divert attention from the recent furor of his calling a dark-skinned man "Macaca," Mark F. Rozell of George Mason University told the Richmond Times Dispatch, September 20, 2006. "He's been wanting to change the dialogue in this campaign. At one point, he's been defending himself against charges of being a bully. Now he can play the victim and say he's the one that's being bullied and being treated with prejudice."

"You don't start wars just because you don't like somebody... I wouldn't even start a war with Rupert Murdoch"

-- CNN founder Ted Turner on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. "It will go down in history, it is already being seen in history, as one of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody. A couple of others that come to mind were the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the German invasion of Russia," he said at a Reuters Newsmaker forum, September 19, 2006

"I keep reading that Bush is incurious, but when he talks to me he asks a lot of questions, so I can't give him a bad grade on curiosity"

-- President Clinton in The New Yorker, September 18, 2006. "I think both he and his father, because they have peculiar speech patterns, have been underestimated in terms of their intellectual capacity. You know, the way they speak and all, it could be, it could just relate to the way the synapses work in their brains"

"I am sick of Karl Rove's bullshit. Nixon was a Communist compared to this crowd"

-- President Clinton on Bush/Rove marketing far-right viewpoints as "compassionate conservatism." New Yorker, September 18, 2006

"Most people just think it's pathetic. It's a sad story about someone who needs a lot of help, which is made even worse by the fact that he could have been something"

-- A member of Republican leadership, disgusted that Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) plead guilty Sept. 15 to Abramoff-case corruption charges after avowing his innocence to party members four months earlier. "Ney stood up in front of the entire [GOP] Conference and said that he was innocent and that he was taking on these allegations and it was the media's fault and that he would clear his name. . . . He lied to everybody." Roll Call, September 18, 2006

"Somebody mentioned the Jon Stewart program, I've never seen that in my life and I will go to my grave never having seen it...I don't see any reason for it. It's a comedian, self-righteous comedian taking on airs of grandeur and I really don't need that. Politicians are funny enough without a professional comic"

-- Columnist Bob Novak on C-SPAN, September 17, 2006

"[Geneva Conventions] Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It's very vague. What does that mean, 'outrages upon human dignity?' That's a statement that is wide open to interpretation"

-- President Bush at September 15, 2006 press conference, passing the buck to Congress to interpret if waterboarding suspects, forcing arrestees to pose naked for photographs, or having prison guards place dog collars around the necks of prisoners constitutes an 'outrage,' and thus a war crime.

"I make decisions on what I think is right. That's what leaders do"

-- President Bush May 5, 2006, in one of many comments this year to his boasting of his decision-making prowess

"President Bush is very sincere in wanting the tools he needs to fight the war on terror. I don't want the tools they are given to become clubs to be used against our people"

-- Senator Lindsey Graham (R- South Carolina), one of three Senators on the Armed Services Committee who led the GOP opposition against Bush legislation to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions. Graham also made clear to the NY Times, September 17, 2006, that their objection was not an outright revolution against Bush. "It's not a question of defiance or intransigence... [but] there are three branches of government, not one."

"Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior"

-- Earl Devaney, inspector general of the Interior Dept. testimony before the House Government Reform's energy subcommittee, September 13, 2006. "Over the course of this seven-year tenure, I have observed one instance after another when the good work of my office has been dynamically disregarded by the department. Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials, taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias have been routinely dismissed with a promise 'not to do it again.'"

"I certainly don't think President Nazarbayev and Mr Bush will share a joke about the film...we want people to know that [Borat] does not represent the true people of Kazakhstan"

-- Roman Vassilenko, a spokesman for the Kazakhstan Embassy in London, on the upcoming White House visit where the president will discuss the damage caused his country's image by "Borat," a character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Responding as Borat, the star of HBO's "Ali G" show wrote on his website, "Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old." UK/Daily Mail, September 12, 2006

"A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me... It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening"

-- President Bush, telling a group of conservative journalists that he believes the Terror War has sparked the long-awaited revival of religious fevor among evangelicals. Washington Post, September 13, 2006

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation"

-- Air Force secretary Michael Wynne, encouraging testing of nonlethal weapons, such as high-power microwave devices, on U.S. protesters. AP, September 12, 2006

"Liberty grows from the ground -- it cannot be dropped from the air by an unmanned drone"

-- Tory leader David Cameron, vowing that his party would be more independent from the U.S. "We must not turn a blind eye to the excesses of our allies -- abuses of human rights in some Arab countries, or disproportionate Israeli bombing in Lebanon. We are fighting for the principles of civilization -- let us not abandon those principles in the methods we employ," he also told the Belfast Telegraph, September 12, 2006

"Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screenplay are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11. The exact opposite is true"

-- Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and current ABC News consultant on the ABC/Disney production of "The Path to 9/11." Press release, September 10, 2006

"They've trotted that dog out for the last three elections -- and it's got mange all over it"

-- Bill Clinton on the GOP campaign strategy of frightening voters before elections. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 9, 2006

"[Saddam] wasn't going to attack us. He would've been isolated there. He would have been in control of that country but we wouldn't have depleted our resources preventing us from prosecuting a war on terror which is what this is all about"

-- Senator John Rockefeller (D-W Virginia), telling CBS News September 9, 2006 that he regrets voting to give Bush authority to invade Iraq. "[It was] deliberately cynical manipulation to shape American public opinion and 69 percent of the people, at that time, it worked, they said 'we want to go to war'"

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave. We won't stay"

-- Army Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, who was chief of CENTCOM logistics war plans during the run-up to the Iraq War. Scheid told the Hampton Roads (Virginia) Daily Press September 8, 2006 that planners wanted to work on post-invasion plans. "I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that... he said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war"

"Gaza is a jail. Neither people nor goods are allowed to leave it. People are already starving. They try to live on bread and falafel and a few tomatoes and cucumbers they grow themselves"

-- Dr Maged Abu-Ramadan, mayor of Gaza City, to the Independent/UK, September 8, 2006. "It is the worst year for us since 1948"

"This may be another reason why you might question the reliability of polling data"

-- U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor on the conspiracy and fraud guilty plea of the manager of a company that conducted campaign polls for Bush, Lieberman and other political candidates. According to the federal indictment, responses were altered to meet quotas and sometimes completely made up, with employees told to interview "cats and dogs." Newsday, September 7, 2006

"I'm not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him. I don't think the United States needs to become the first in that scenario"

-- Brig. Gen. James Walker, U.S. Marine Corps staff judge advocate testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, September 7, 2006. Under the White House plan for military tribunals, hearsay could be allowed against "unlawful enemy combatants" and evidence could be kept from the defendants

"If the country doesn't survive this, it will go under"

-- Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, September 6, 2006. "Let's start talking the same language. We have three to four months to reconcile with each other"

"He's one of the most powerful men in the world. He's got a lot more important things on his mind. To remember something relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things . . . it's pretty impressive"

-- St. Louis Cardinals member Gary Bennett, awfully impressed that the Decider stole time away from his short workday, usually interrupted by a nap or 2-hour exercise regime, to watch a recent baseball game where Bennett made a winning catch. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 6, 2006

"It becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?'"

-- MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann September 5, 2006, on Bush's speech earlier that day that attempted to confound Osama with Lenin and Hitler, as well as linking the occupation of Iraq to the Cold War and WWII

"The problem is we get oil from some parts of the world and they simply don't like us. And so the more dependent we are on that type of energy, the less likely it will be that we are able to compete, and so people have good, high-paying jobs"

-- President Bush, terrorist of subject, predicate, and verb agreement. September 4, 2006 Labor Day speech

"Somebody walked up and said, 'You corrupt bastards,' and that name stuck"

-- Alaska House Finance Co-Chairman Mike Chenault, one of 11 Alaskan Republicans linked to large campaign contributions from an oil field services company. The warrant for the FBI raid of offices for the company and several of the legislators specifically mentioned they were looking for "any physical garments (including hats)" including the names 'CBC,' 'Corrupt Bastards Club,' or 'Corrupt Bastards Caucus.' AP, September 1, 2006

"The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq"

-- President Bush, implying that Cheney and Rumsfeld are understating the conflict by insisting that the Iraq war is merely about fighting against "fascism." August 31, 2006, and repeated in his weekly radio address Sept. 2

"It's sort of a one step forward, two steps back"

-- Dan Senor, former senior advisor to the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority and spokesman for Presidential Envoy Paul Bremer on The O'Reilly Factor, August 31, 2006. "If we withdraw right now, we have some 140,000 troops in Iraq right now, just take that engagement alone, and if we withdraw it would be the single largest engagement that was withdrawn immediately or according to a timetable in American military history. And imagine the signal that would send to the war. It's an important moment"

"Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience -- about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago -- we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their 'omniscience' as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego. But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris"

-- MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann August 30, 2006, on Rumsfeld's comparisons of the Terror War to the buildup of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and charging critics of the Bush White House are ignoring "history's lessons." Olbermann continued, "The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet"

"Only by adopting the techniques of the big lie can the vice president make his case that those opposed to the Iraqi war fail to understand the importance of a firm response to terrorists"

-- Rep. Barney Frank (D - Mass) editorial in the Boston Globe, August 30, 2006. "The fact that the Bush-Cheney claims that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks have been totally repudiated does not stop the administration and its allies from equating willingness to combat terror with support for the war in Iraq"

"The key thing for me is to keep expectations low"

-- President Bush slipping out a little secret after becoming flustered over questions from Brian Williams/NBC about the books he was reading this summer. Williams noted that instead of recent lightweight fare such as a biography of Joe DiMaggio, the president was now reading Albert Camus' existentialist novel, "The Stranger." Bush explained that he had a very "ecelectic" [sic] reading list that also included "three Shakespeares." August 29, 2006

"He's much more a normal person than his public persona"

-- Stephen Hayes, authorized biographer of Dick Cheney. Hayes, who writes for the neo-con magazine Weekly Standard and author of several discredited op/eds attempting to link al-Qaeda with Saddam, also told U.S. News & World Report August 28, 2006 that Cheney is a strong advocate for the "softer side of the Bush doctrine, advocacy of democracy"

"I'd love to be Santa Claus. I'm not"

-- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld making no promises to wives and other family members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade that the soldiers will be home by Christmas. The Alaska-based forces just compled a year's duty in Mosul and were immediately ordered to Baghdad for at least four months of patrol duty. Rumsfeld told AP, August 26, 2006, that he didn't understand why the families were upset by his refusal to say when their loved ones might return home. "I'm not going to get into the promises business. That isn't my style...these people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they're doing because they want to do it. They're proud of what they do. They do it very, very well"

"Violence has decreased and our security ability is increasing. We are not in civil war and will never be in civil war. What you see is an atmosphere of reconciliation"

-- Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN, August 27, 2006. The same day at least 60 Iraqis were reconciled to death by gunmen, roadside bombs, snipers, and suicide bombers

"Donald Rumsfeld is still at the helm of the Department of Defense, which is absolutely outrageous. He served up our great military a huge bowl of chicken feces, and ever since then, our military and our country have been trying to turn this bowl into chicken salad. And it's not working"

-- General John Batiste (Ret), former commander of the First Infantry division in Iraq. MSNBC Harball, August 25, 2006

"You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed and it's five years later. So let's be fair"

-- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin after CBS reporter Byron Pitts pointed out unrepaired damage from Hurricane Katrina. August 24, 2006

"[Bush is] a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides"

-- U.S. News & World columnist Paul Bedard, August 20, 2006

"I will swear to uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which you elect me, so help me God"

-- George W. Bush stump speech campaign pledge, 2000

"We thought it was just a little ball"

-- Hassan, a 10 year-old girl in the intensive care ward at a hospital in Tyre, Lebanon, because her abdomen was blown open by an Israeli cluster bomb. "We're finding them in orange plantations, on streets, in cars, near hospitals -- pretty much everywhere," Chris Clark of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre in Tyre told the Guardian/UK, August 21, 2006. Clark said 210 bombs were found around the town hospital in Tibin. "That's about as inappropriate [a use of cluster bombs] as you can get"

"Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders. I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be"

-- Senator John McCain press conference, August 22, 2006. "Americans feel [frustration] today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach"

"We're not leaving [Iraq] so long as I'm the president"

-- President Bush press conference, August 21, 2006

"Both sides believe that a balance of terror has been established. They have demonstrated to each other that they can inflict pain on each other, and neither can get rid of the other"

-- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad on the balance of terror between Shiites and Sunnis. Khalilzad also told CBS News, August 20, 2006, that the Iraqi government has "another three or four months" to stop the sectarian violence. On June 1, Khalilzad told USA TODAY that Iraq had 3-6 months to stabilize the country or it faced collapse

"Fixing weapons has turned into a thriving business these days, thanks to the bad security situation"

-- Karem al-Faham, a neighborhood gunsmith in Najaf, who says he has a steady stream of customers seeking to get every weapon they have in working order. "Some weapons are just called 'English' because they were used to fight the British troops during the 1920 Revolution," Faham told AFP, August 18, 2006

"We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent power' must derive from that Constitution"

-- U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, ruling the NSA warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional. August 17, 2006

"They seem to be anxious to tie it to al Qaeda. ... If that's true, how come we got seven times as many troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan?"

-- President Bill Clinton on Bush White House efforts to politicize the terror threat. "Why have we imperiled President [Hamid] Karzai's rule and allowed the Taliban to come back into the southern part of Afghanistan? Why was Iraq deemed to be seven times more important than finding the al Qaeda leaders for the last five years?" August 16, 2006

"The big complaint now in the intelligence community is that all of the important stuff is being sent directly to the top -- at the insistence of the White House -- and not being analyzed at all, or scarcely. It's an awful policy and violates all of the NSA's strictures, and if you complain about it you're out"

-- A Pentagon consultant explaining to Seymour Hersh at The New Yorker, August 14, 2006, that the White House is grabbing raw data about Hezbollah and Iran in exactly the same way as it mishanded intellegence about Iraq in 2002 and early 2003. "Cheney had a strong hand in this"

"We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later -- the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office'"

-- A former intelligence officer to Seymour Hersh at The New Yorker, August 14, 2006. Cheney's point, the source also said, was "What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it's really successful? It'd be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon"

"If the most dominant military force in the region -- the Israel Defense Forces -- can't pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million"

-- Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State in Bush's first term, to Seymour Hersh at The New Yorker, August 14, 2006. "The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis"

"I marvel at their ability to get away with it. I have to grudgingly admit to some envy. I admire their chutzpah"

-- Lanny Davis, White House special counsel for Clinton on White House barring the press from Bush's frequent fundraisers, which in turn has led to media organizations cutting back on the number of reporters covering the President. "Go back 20 or 25 years and say we're at war and the president is traveling around the country and there are only, what, three people with him?" Joe Lockhart, Clinton's White House press secretary told the Washington Post, August 12, 2006. "That would have been unthinkable"

"I don't take anything he says seriously anymore. I think that he has been a very counterproductive, even destructive, force in our country"

-- Senator Hillary Clinton on comments by President Cheney, who said Aug. 9 that Lieberman's defeat was "disturbing" because "al Qaeda types [hope] they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task." Clinton quote WNYC, August 11, 2006

"This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means"

-- Representative Rahm Emanuel (D - Illinois) leader of the Democratic House Congressional campaign, on the defeat of Joe Lieberman to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primary. "This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush," he told the NY Times, August 9, 2006

"It seems fairly clear that the Pentagon brass has decided the only way they can succeed with the Army museum is to make a museum wrapped in an amusement park"

-- Fairfax (Virginia) County Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman on plans to help underwrite the cost of the $300 million museum by allowing a private developer to build a military theme park next door. The proposal from a Florida developer would include bars like the "1st Division Lounge" and several "4D" rides: "You can command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner." Washington Post, August 8, 2006

"If the Democrats can't stand up to all the mistakes that Bush has made here, we're not much of a party"

-- Senator Russ Feingold (D - Wisconsin) to Newsweek, August 7, 2006. "It was an enormous failure of the Democratic Party to not stand up to George Bush when he was dead wrong. Without this voice being given in Connecticut and other places, we are going to suffocate our own base. And our base will turn away from us. We could end up with a third party pretty soon"

"I'm flabbergasted -- This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence"

"If we have such good information in Lebanon, how come we still don't know the hideout of missiles and launchers?... If we don't know the location of their weapons, why should we know which house is a Hezbollah house?"

-- A "well-connected Israeli expert" on anger within Israel over their army's inability to stop Hezbollah retaliation. Israel's chief of staff, Major-General Dan Halutz, had vowed to wipe out Hezbollah's missile threat within 10 days. Observer/UK, August 6, 2006

"It doesn't say my new address, but I do live here now. My name is Cindy and Bush killed my son"

-- Cindy Sheehan, newest resident of Crawford, Texas, showing ID to a Secret Service agent. Sheehan was trying to pass a roadblock to visit a neighbor. August 6, 2006

"We were told that everybody on this island was hostile. They were known al Qaeda insurgents, and we're going to kill all military-age males"

-- Pfc. Corey Clagett, one of four U.S. soldiers under investigation for killing three Iraqi suspects on Thar Thar Lake island near Tikrit on May 9. The prosecutor charges that the men were released from their bonds, then shot dead as they tried to flee. "They cut them loose and murdered them in cold blood"

"How incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage"

-- Hate radio talkshow host Neal Boortz, August 3, 2006

"I have never painted a rosy picture. I have been very measured in my words, and you'd have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where I have been excessively optimistic. I understand this is tough stuff"

-- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld testimony on the Iraq situation before the Senate Armed Services Committee, August 3, 2006. Rumsfeld was answering a question from Committee member Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who later released a dozen examples of false optimism, and called for him to resign

"How the hell did this flaming left-winger pull this off? It's not like my position on the issues have changed."

-- Pennsylvania Green candidate Carl Romanelli, whose campaign is funded entirely by GOP money, according to TPMmuckraker.com. Asked if supporters of incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum might be using him to lure votes away from the Democratic challenger, Romanelli said, "I respect the fact that people on the complete opposite side of an issue could respect my point of view." August 3, 2006

"There is a danger in a policy in which there is no daylight whatsoever between the government of Israel and the government of the United States. Bush One and James Baker would never have allowed that to happen"

-- Aaron David Miller, an Arab-Israeli negotiator for both Bush administrations. New York Times, August 2, 2006

"It's really a proxy war between the United States and Iran. When viewed in that context, it puts everything in a different light"

-- David J. Rothkopf, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the Israel- Lebanon conflict. Washington Post, July 31, 2006

"An opportunity? Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

-- Richard Haass, former Bush State Department policy planning director and now leader of the Council on Foreign Relations. In his July 29 radio address, Bush called Israel's assault on Lebanon "a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region." Washington Post, July 31, 2006

"They're not allowed to ask for more troops. If you say something you're gone, you're relieved, you're not in the Army anymore"

-- A U.S. defense official in Iraq on news that 3,700 U.S. soldiers are being sent to Baghdad from from Kuwait and other assignments in Iraq. The official, who spoke to McClatchy Newspapers, July 30, 2006 on the condition of anonymity, said Rumsfeld's reluctance to increase U.S. deployments in Iraq or the overall size of the Army has resulted in a doomed strategy of reaction to the latest outbreaks of violence instead of operations that would shut down an area, piece by piece, and establish long-term security

"Anywhere else in the world, throwing a few million dollars in the back of a Mazda and driving from the Central Bank is crazy"

-- Hussein al-Uzri, president and chairman of the Trade Bank of Iraq, explaining that banks are transporting cash using ordinary cars instead of armored cars to attract less attention. NY Times, July 28, 2006

"These places are not villages. They are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating"

-- Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, justifying the bombing of Lebanon villages before ground forces enter. At least 434 people, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israeli operations in Lebanon, and the following day an airstrike demolished a home in Nabatiyeh, killing a mother and her five children. AP, July 27, 2006

"I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter... If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose"

-- Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, the GOP candidate for Senate for that state. Steele also told the Washington Post July 25, 2006, that he was agitated by Bush's unwillingness to admit failure. "I don't know why the people around him don't see that," he said. "It is a frustration, to say the least. I think it is a lost opportunity to bring the American people along on a mission that is incredibly important"

"I am just waiting in a queue to die"

-- Ahmed, a Baghdad resident who had two relatives kidnapped last year and are now presumed dead. His sister-in-law was killed a few months later when militia members shot her several times in the head at home, and his wife recently narrowly escaped death when an IED exploded as a police patrol drove past their house, leaving her with servere injuries. Ahmed told Reuters, July 24, 2006, that he now receives text messages from someone who threatens to kill him if he doesn't join a militant group

"It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses. It makes it a violation of humanitarian law"

-- UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland on viewing the destruction of Israel's bombing of Beirut. "It's bigger, it's more extensive than I even could imagine," he told Reuters, July 23, 2006

"It kind of reminds [me of] the Third Reich, the big lie. You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their strategy"

-- Senator Jim Inhofe (R - Oklahoma), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, refuting the existence of global warming. "I know the text, and I know they are using old stuff that has been totally discredited," Inhofe told the Tulsa World, July 22, 2006. "Everything on which they based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically"

"There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush...If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign"

-- Conservative movement godfather William F. Buckley, CBS News, July 22, 2006

"He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians"

-- A former senior Bush administration official on the president ignoring pressure from the UN and Europe to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Washington Post, July 21, 2006

"Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions? Is this the message to send to the country of diversity, freedom and tolerance? Only last year, the Lebanese filled the streets with hope and with red, green and white banners shouting out: Lebanon deserves life! What kind of life is being offered to us now? I will tell you what kind: a life of destruction, despair, displacement, dispossession, and death. What kind of future can stem from the rubble? A future of fear, frustration, despair, financial ruin and fanaticism"

-- Lebanon Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, quoted in the Lebanon Daily Star, July 20, 2006

"It sends a clear message to every Arab reformer and every Arab politician who's thinking of allying with the United States and going out on a limb in order to push reform. And that message is: Don't count on the United States. They don't really mean democracy. What they really mean is 'I want you to go and hunt terrorist for me. And if you don't hunt those terrorists for me, I'm going to bomb you'"

-- Syria expert and professor Joshua Landis/Oklahoma University on damage done to Bush foreign policy by Israel's unrestrained assault on Lebanon. In March, 2005, Bush praised Lebanon as a beacon of democracy and freedom in the Middle East, promising, "The American people are on your side." Nieman Watchdog Project, July 19, 2006

"I'm going to let myself know what I think a little bit later"

-- National security adviser Steve Hadley, asked for comments on Putin's remark that Russia "will not participate in any crusades, in any holy alliances." Hadley and Putin spoke at separate July 15, 2006 press conferences at the G8 summit

"Personally, I could care less that a grown man used a swear word when speaking to another grown man. I'm more disturbed that the President used 'irony' to describe what seemed to be an entirely unironic situation. Have we learned nothing from Alanis Morrisette? "

-- Time TV critic and blogger James Poniewozik on Bush comments to Blair captured by an open microphone at the G8 summit luncheon, July 17, 2006: "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over."

"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly"

-- President Vladimir Putin's comeback to Bush at July 15, 2006 press conference, after Bush spoke about his "desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion... a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing"

"I also say we need to do a few other things on top of that wall, and one of them being to put a little bit of wire on top here to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top. We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time"

-- Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), showing on the House floor a model he designed for a new fence along the Mexican border. King spokeswoman Summer Johnson told The Hill July 13, 2006 that her boss didn't mean to compare immigrants to livestock, just border fences to Iowa farm fences

"It took me about, you know, a second and a half to realize that, obviously, there was massive corruption going on, because the numbers just didn't add up"

-- U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, telling the House Government Reform subcommittee "a lot of theft going on" in Iraq's oil industry, July 11, 2006. Walker said 40% of the combined domestic and imported refined oil is being stolen

"The President is always right"

"I am out in the middle of nowhere. We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here"

-- Brian Lehman, owner of "Amish Country Popcorn," on learning that his 5-employee company was on a Department of Homeland Security list of "critical infrastructure and key resources" that could be potential terrorism targets. Also among the more than 77 thousand entries were Nix's Check Cashing, Old MacDonald's petting zoo, Bourbon Festival, and a Mule Day Parade. New York Times, July 11, 2006

"We are a society built on blood feud. For every Shiite killed there will be a Sunni killed -- and vice versa"

-- An unnamed official from one of the main Shiite political groups in Iraq. Reuters, July 10, 2006

"We need to realize that we could actually fail here. Think of the psychological victory for Bin Laden and his ilk if we failed and the Taliban came back"

-- Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. London Sunday Times, July 9, 2006

"One of the things that really slowed down the western response to Sunni extremists, but al-Qaeda specifically, is that when intelligence agents looked at a group made up of Yemenis, Egyptians, Saudis, Algerians and converts, the natural response was to say, 'That is not going to last 10 minutes. They can't get along together'"

-- Michael Scheuer, who once led the now-closed CIA's unit that hunted for bin Laden. " It took a long time for people to realize we were seeing an animal of a very unique nature. We haven't even begun to understand where our enemy is coming from." Guardian/UK, July 8, 2006

"The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution"

-- Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan), House Intelligence Committee chairman in a May 18 letter to president Bush. The letter, reported in the New York Times July 9, 2006, complains that the White House has not even told the Committee about all secret operations. "If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies"

"Every 'Mohammed' is a terrorist now?"

-- Qadir Khan, who told AP, July 6, 2006, that Western Union blocked his attempt to wire money to his brother Mohammed in Pakistan. Western Union routinely delays or blocks transfers to names that appear on a Treasury Dept. blacklist. "Just because Ahmed is a common name on their list, everyone with that name is suddenly stuck," says Corey Saylor, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations

"They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists"

-- Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang investigator in a July 7, 2006 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

"If we bomb Iran, they cannot retaliate militarily by air, only on the ground or by sea ... What if 100,000 Iranian volunteers came across the [Iraq] border?"

-- William Nash, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Army Major General (ret.) "Their first possible response would be to send forces into Iraq. And, since the Iraqi Army has limited capacity, it means that the coalition forces would have to engage them." New Yorker issue of July 10, 2006

"My loyalty to the Democratic Party goes back a lot further than his. Ned Lamont is less about his party than himself and his point of view"

-- Ultra-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is currently gathering signatures to run as an independent if Connecticut Democrats pick challeger Lamont in the August primary. Danbury News Times, July 5, 2006

"I don't think U.S. intelligence really has a clue where Bin Laden is... the analogy I use, is when you search your entire house for your car keys, maybe the car keys are in the car. When you search Pakistan high and low and you can't find him, maybe that's because he's not there"

-- Former Bush terrorist advisor Richard Clarke on NPR Morning Edition, July 3, 2006. Clarke says he believes bin Laden may be in ex-Soviet Central Asia, Somalia, or Iran

"Well, if you define the word 'smart' in an antiseptic and clinical way that excludes any ethical dimension, then, yeah, I guess it was smart"

-- Al Gore, asked in the July 13, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone if he thought Bush's 2000 campaign pledge to limit CO2 emissions was a smart strategic move. "[His] statement on global warming, and the specific pledge to reduce CO2 emissions with the force of law, was part of a larger pattern. He was completely fraudulent from head to toe"

"It is a rebuke for the process. It's a return to our fundamental values. And that return marks a high water point in American history. It means that we can't be scared out of who we are. And that's victory, folks"

"At first, the dominant presence of the U.S. military -- with its towering vehicles rumbling through Baghdad's streets and its soldiers like giants with their vests and helmets and weapons -- seemed overwhelming. The Occupation could be felt at all times. Now in Baghdad, you can go days without seeing American soldiers. Instead, it feels as if Iraqis are occupying Iraq, their masked militiamen blasting through traffic in anonymous security vehicles, shooting into the air, angrily shouting orders on loudspeakers, pointing their Kalashnikovs at passersby. Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy"

-- Nir Rosen, a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of "In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq." Washington Post, May 28, 2006

"I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith by politicians who come and they're clapping kind of off-rhythm to the choir. We don't need that"

-- Senator Barack Obama (D - Illinois) at a June 28, 2006 address to Sojourners magazine's Call to Renewal conference in Washington. "[But] ...If we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyes's views will continue to hold sway"

"Fuck, I'm stunned"

-- Margaret Beckett to Tony Blair, after he told her that she would replace Jack Straw as the UK's foreign secretary. Guardian/UK, June 28, 2006

"Bush the Elder wept as he talked, with Paula Zahn, about what it was to send men to war. Bush the Younger would breastfeed the military if he could. Hillary is like someone who would know she should be moved but wouldn't be"

-- Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, exhibiting her uncanny skills as a psychic and mind reader. "[Senator Hillary Clinton] seems like someone who might calculatedly go to war, or not, based on how she wanted to be perceived and look and do. She does not seem like someone who would anguish and weep over sending men into harm's way." WSJ, June 29, 2006

"Well, you kind of had to be there"

-- Ann Coulter, forgiving herself for twice calling Iranians "ragheads" in a February speech to the Conservative Action Political Conference. Coulter also told the NY Observer July 3, 2006 issue, "I don't think I've said anything offensive"

"Thank you for your opinion. But I was hoping this would be an interview of me rather than an interview of you"

-- Senator Carl Levin (D - Michigan) to Fox & Friends anchor Brian Kilmeade, June 27, 2006. Kilmeade hectored Senator Levin after he asked if Republicans would call General Casey "Cut-and-Run George" for saying there will be substantial Iraq troop reductions later this year. Kilmeade cut short the interview saying, "Well, you know what, I did interview you. I listened to you talk. I watched you read," before the segment ended with Kilmeade shaking his head and muttering

"Here's a man who is a sitting U.S. senator, who has been a candidate for vice-president. He ran for president. And he's behaving like some lowlife"

-- Political consultant Tom D'Amore on Senator Joe Lieberman's attacks against Democratic primary challenger Ned Lamont. Lieberman, whose lead in the polls has dropped to 9 percent, is using attack ads on TV and in glossy direct-mail flyers. "It's just amazing. This is, pardon, the pun, really Bush-league policy," said D'Amore, who has worked for Lamont. New Haven Independent, June 26, 2006

"I don't think he kissed me, he leaned over and gave me a hug and said 'thank you for being a patriotic American'"

-- Sen. Joe Lieberman (D - Connecticut), denying that Bush gave him a peck on the cheek following the 2005 State of the Union address. The kiss has become a reelection campaign issue as a symbol of Lieberman's support for the President. "I didn't kiss him back," he also told a group of Democrats. TIME, June 25, 2006

"No, I don't want to respond to him. He's at 20 percent in the polls. No one listens to him. He has no credibility. It's ridiculous"

-- Senator Joseph Biden (D - Delaware), asked by Wolf Blitzer if he'd like to respond to a recent comment from Cheney that, "The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting...packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don't have the stomach for this fight." CNN Late Edition, June 25, 2006

"The worst thing we could possibly do is what Vice President Cheney and President Bush did, which was take us into an unnecessary war that had nothing to do with 9/11 on false pretenses. They have done the worst thing that's ever been done in this regard. The question is, do we just keep making the same mistake over and over again? Do we just stay in Iraq so that Cheney and Bush can say that, that they were right?"

-- Senator Russell Feingold (D - Wisconsin) commenting on the same quote from Cheney. Meet the Press, June 25, 2006

"We're not blindly united like the other side is, where they are like the three monkeys -- 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.' They're not going to say anything negative about the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense or anybody else. I think that's irresponsible. It's negligent"

-- Senator Hillary Clinton, Washington Post, June 24, 2006

"Unlike me, [Senator John Kerry] is a combat veteran, so he gets some props. But in the last 35 years, I've seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry"

-- Geraldo Rivera on The O'Reilly Factor, June 22, 2006. Rivera also said the U.S. has to "stay the course" in Iraq, and Kerry's amendment to redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq by July 2007 "only aids and abets the enemy, and the Democrats are at their own self-destructive behavior once again"

"It can't get out. He's Christian Coalition. It wouldn't look good if they're receiving money from a casino-operating tribe to oppose gaming. It would be kind of like hypocritical"

-- William Worfel, former vice-chairman of the Lousiana Coushatta tribe, on directions given to them concerning Ralph Reed. The tribe was told by Jack Abramoff to work with the former Christian Coalition Executive Director to financially support evangelical conservatives, even though the groups were opposed to gaming expansion. Final report on the tribal lobbying investigation for the Committee for Indian Affairs, June 22, 2006

"The British used to make a big deal of walking around in their berets in the south [of Iraq]. Now they won't even go to the latrines without their helmets"

-- Former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage in an interview with The Australian, June 21, 2006. "The south has got much rougher, it's mainly Shia on Shia violence"

"If you want your taxes low, keep Denny Hastert and Bill Frist as leaders of the House and the Senate... I want to thank you for helping make sure that Denny Hastert and Bill Frist remain in their positions in the Senate and the House"

-- President Bush at the June 19, 2006 "President's Dinner" GOP fundraiser. Senator Bill Frist is retiring at the end of this year

"He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside saying, 'Stay the course.' That's not a plan"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) on Karl Rove's repeated "cut and run" swipe against Democrats. "Meet the Press," June 18, 2006

"People have a right to make a living, but working virtually immediately for a company that is bidding for work in an area where you were just setting the policy -- that is too close. It is almost incestuous"

-- Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, observing that 2 out of 3 of the department's former senior executives are now working for domestic security companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of business. New York Times, June 18, 2006

"I don't think this way of doing politics and making policy is good for America. We've got to find ways to get back to evidence-based politics"

-- Bill Clinton at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention, June 17, 2006. Clinton also said "ultra-conservative, white Southerners" have "demonized" those who disagree with them, and that he sincerely believes Bush has "an intuitive intelligence"

"[The Internet] has proven to be a tool on our side to sort of unite Conservatives and have a healthy intra-movement dialogue... the Internet for the Left of the Democratic Party has served as a way to mobilize hate and anger"

-- Karl Rove, June 16, 2006 interview, VictoryNH.com

"There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at. And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas"

-- Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), drawing laughter and applause for his comments on the death of Zarqawi at a Des Moines GOP rally for presidential hopefuls. King also said that he prayed that Supreme Court Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsberg fall madly in love and elope to Cuba so Bush can appoint two more Justices like Alito and Roberts. Radio Iowa, June 17, 2006

"They did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are"

-- Iraq national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, telling a June 15, 2006 press conference that Zarqawi's death was the "beginning of the end" for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Pentagon stopped releasing estimates on the number of Iraqi security forces capable of fighting without U.S. support after a February estimate found that not a single battalions was ready to fight rebel forces on their own. A spokeswoman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Maj. Almarah Belk, told Hearst newspapers June 12, 2006 that the Pentagon has classified the report to prevent "letting the enemy know exactly what the Iraqi security forces' capabilities are"

"It's kind of ironic that just about every phrase Stewie from Family Guy uses to describe Lois could easily be applied to Ann Coulter"

-- Conservative RedState.org blogger Mike Krempasky, quoted by Editor & Publisher, June 15, 2006. Krempasky was commenting on a recent Coulter statement that ex-war hero Rep. John Murtha was "the reason soldiers invented 'fragging.'"

"You know, it's a number, and every time there's one of these 500-benchmarks, people want something"

-- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on the 2,500th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. June 15, 2006

"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?"

-- President Bush, answering the question, "Is the tide turning in Iraq?" at a June 14, 2006 press conference. Six days earlier, Bush called Zarqawi's death "an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle." Until Bush was sent to an East Coast boarding school, he was raised in the city of Houston and upscale suburbs of Midland, Texas

"I cannot talk with you -- I haven't joined a party and no militia is protecting me"

-- Sajid Saad Hassan, a professor at Basra University's agriculture college, to the New York Times June 13, 2006. "It's mafia-type politics down here," Brig. James Everard, commander of the British forces in Basra, also told the Times

"Congress long ago did away with the literacy test qualification to vote. Apparently, Members of Congress acknowledge you shouldn't have to pass a test to vote for them, but they don't want you to contact them without taking a quiz"

-- Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office on the math or logic questions that must be answered before sending e-mail to some Senators and Representatives from their websites. According to the Washington Post, June 12, 2006, only about 1 out of 5 proceed and send the e-mail. To conact Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), visitors must use a pop-up menu to "select the word 4th on the list from bottom to top." One wordlist shown contained, "wefts, sensual, reassigns, incestuous, octets, roistered, humming, tediums"

"They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us"

-- Guantanamo Bay base commander Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris on the suicide of three prisoners who had been captive for about four years. All had joined the recent hunger strike to protest their indefinite incarceration and had been force-fed before quitting their protest, Harris told reporters at a telephone press conference, June 11, 2006

"Like too many Democrats it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough, they fall back of that party's old platform of cutting and running. They may be with you for the first few bullets but they won't be there for the last tough battles"

-- Karl Rove on Senator John Kerry and Rep. John Murtha. Rove was speaking at a June 12, 2006 New Hampshire fundraiser to help pay legal bills of Republicans convicted of jamming Democratic phone lines during the 2002 U.S. Senate race in the state

"Well, 'stay the course' is 'stay and pay.' This is the thing that has worried me right along. We're spending $8 billion dollars a month, $300 million dollars a day... Whose going to pay for this down the road? Our children and grandchildren are paying for this war. And then you have the emotional strain, the people who are being hurt"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) on Meet the Press, June 11, 2006

"A lot of people look at politics and see it as the guy who wins is the guy who unifies the most people. I would disagree. I would say the candidate who wins is the candidate who polarizes the right bloc of voters. You always want to polarize somebody"

-- Allen Raymond, who held several key posts with the Republican National Committee and is one of three political operatives who recently finished prison terms for jamming Democratic phone lines during the 2002 U.S. Senate race in New Hampshire. Boston Globe, June 10, 2006

"His ideas are still alive. People in the Middle East look at him as a model now. The black cap he wore has become a symbol and young Muslims wear it everywhere"

-- Saiel, Zarqawi's older brother and a former militant at a memorial service near the Jordanian town of Zarqa. The Guardian/UK, June 10, 2006

"We're trying not to get into too many values judgment type issues"

-- Top Army media spokesman in Iraq Maj. Joseph Todd Breasseale, on Grand Ayatollah Sistani's fatwa for Iraqi gays to be "killed in the harshest way." Breasseale added, "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, when we're in a fledgling time like this, to go in and say, 'Here's these issues that are going to repel 80 percent of the population and this is what we want to inflict on you.'" Washington Blade, June 8, 2006

"I don't think that Zarqawi is himself responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq. I think George Bush is"

-- Michael Berg, whose son Nick was beheaded by Zarqawi in 2004. Berg also argued on Fox & Friends, June 8, 2006, that Bush authorized policies that led directly to his son's gruesome murder. "Yeah, like George Bush didn't OK the torture and death and rape of people in the Abu Ghraib prison for which my son was killed in retaliation?"

"It's the ugliness of the charge that she's making and the ugliness of the words she's using that are drawing attention to her, but it's almost like she's a figure in a circus and you say, 'Oh my God, can you believe that?'"

-- Former White House adviser David Gergen on Ann Coulter, who calls 9/11 widows millionaire "witches" and "harpies" who are "enjoying their husbands' deaths" in her new book, while further suggesting their husbands planned to divorce them. NBC News, June 7, 2006

"We're not buying it. We're going to go and watch the dog-and-pony show, [but] it's too little, too late"

-- Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, telling the LA Times June 3, 2006, that Bush's recent push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a "ruse." Grover also told AFP that "[Bush] thinks that he can hold one speech ... the day before the vote, which is a clear expression of weakness, and appease conservatives as if he's done something significant"

"If America cuts and runs in Iraq, who's going to tell the families that their loss was in vain?"

-- Karl Rove, quoted in the St. Petersburg Times, June 2, 2006. Current Google hits for the combination of words, "actions," "consequences," "responsibility," and "Bush administration:" about 3,870,000

"There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it. I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha"

-- The wife of a staff sergeant in the Marines battalion under suspicion in the Haditha massacre. Also reported in the June 12, 2006 issue of Newseek, the "Thundering Third" long had been given liberal rules of engagement to make sure people who looked like civilians didn't trigger hidden roadside bombs. "If you see someone with a cell phone," said one of the commanders, half-jokingly, "put a bullet in their fucking head"

"It's impossible to believe they didn't know"

"Ishaqi is just another reason why we shouldn't trust the Americans"

-- Abdullah Hussein, an engineer in Baghdad to Reuters, June 3, 2006. The Pentagon said there was no wrongdoing in the March 15 raid where 5 children, 4 women, and 2 men were bound and shot in the head, according to video and press reports from the BBC, AP, and AFP news services. The U.S position is that shots were fired from the house and a following airstrike killed an insurgent, 2 women and a child

"This is a phenomenon that has become common among many of the multinational forces. No respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch. It's unacceptable"

"If you ask anybody in Basra, they would tell you most of the crimes committed, the assassinations, they are carried out by policemen in police cars"

"One thing I don't want to hear anymore is people like Laura Ingraham spewing about us not leaving our balconies in the Green Zone to cover what's really happening in Iraq"

-- NBC News president Steve Capus after two CBS crew members were killed and a reporter seriously injured by a Baghdad IED on Memorial Day. "For people to criticize what we do is just monstrous," he told the New York Times, May 31, 2006

"If you have a renegade band of right-wing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right"

-- Al Gore on the shift of American politics in the Bush/Cheney era. UK/Guardian, May 31, 2006

"The premise of that 'Saturday Night Live' skit was the existence of an alternate universe and there are people who sort of voluntarily say now it feels as if we've entered an alternative universe. I would not have imagined, for example, that Americans could be routinely torturing helpless captives in the name of the American people and to continue it day after day. It's going on right now without an ongoing outrage and the demand that it stop. I would not have imagined that the government could routinely eavesdrop on tens of millions of Americans without a warrant and not have an ongoing outrage. I would not have imagined that we, the American people, would tolerate the locking up by the executive branch of American citizens without right to trial, without right to inform their families, to be held in secret, without being charged. These are offenses against the Constitution and the rule of law that I would never have imagined could take place, much less be allowed to continue after they came to light"

-- Al Gore interview on NPR's "Fresh Air," May 31, 2006

"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit'"

-- Senator John McCain at a private New York City meeting with top political donors. New York Observer, May 29, 2006 edition

"The concern is that the Administration says, 'We're going to do this,' and he does it -- even if he knows better"

-- A senior congressional staff aide on General Michael Hayden, current head of the NSA and nominee for DCIA. Former Senator Bob Kerrey and member of the 9/11 Commission also dismissed Hayden's claim that the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped if the NSA had its current wiretapping powers. "That's patently false and an indication that he's willing to politicize intelligence and use false information to help the President," Kerrey told Seymour Hersh in the May 29, 2006 edition of The New Yorker

"What the companies are doing is worse than turning over records. They're providing total access to all the data"

-- A security consultant working with a major telecommunications carrier, explaining to Seymour Hersh in the May 29, 2006 edition of The New Yorker that the NSA has access to phone conversations, not just records of which numbers were dialed. "This is not about getting a cardboard box of monthly phone bills in alphabetical order," a former senior intelligence official also told Hersh. "The NSA is getting real-time actionable intelligence"

"Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews"

-- Bill Gray, professor emeritus Colorado State University, and a leading nay-sayer of global warming. "I've been in meteorology over 50 years. I've worked damn hard, and I've been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who've been around have not been asked about this. It's sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing." Washington Post Magazine, May 28, 2006

"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened. This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), "This Week" on ABC-TV, May 28, 2006

"I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' but they killed him, and his wife and daughters"

-- Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he heard his neighbor, Younis Salim Khafif, plead to Marines in English for the lives of his family. Washington Post, May 27, 2006

"Saying, 'bring it on,' kinda tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know, 'wanted dead or alive,' that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted. And so I learned -- I learned from that"

-- President Bush at May 25, 2006 press conference, answering a reporter's question on regret

"If [Bush] acknowledged that he made mistakes, well then that's a good thing. Better late than never, as long as they learn from it. I mean, everybody makes mistakes but these are costly ones. These are really costly ones"

-- Carol McKeever of Buffalo NY, whose son died in Iraq just weeks before he was due to return home to his wife and baby son. AP, May 26, 2006

"Hey, John, what kind of hole are you in? There's something that's really wrong with you... We'll send you psychiatric help because you really need it"

-- Rudy Giuliani taunting a caller on his radio show who complained about city cuts to aid for the disabled. The caller was attorney John Hynes who suffers from Parkinson's disease and was running out of medicine after his benefits were cut off. From the documentary "Giuliani Time" quoted by the Washington Post, May 26, 2006

"I didn't see [the meeting] as ... an exchange of ideas as much as it was an exchange of arguments"

-- Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on the May 24, 2006 meeting between Karl Rove and House Republicans on immigration policy. L.A. Times, May 25

"Quite frankly, I don't think that's really practical. Ninety days to register 12 million people. Do the math"

-- Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, on the Senate's proposed guest-worker program. Gonzalez said the government is still litigating eligibility cases from Reagan's 1986 amnesty for 3 million immigrants. Washington Times, May 22, 2006

"When [Bush] says 'God is on our side', it's very different from Lincoln saying 'We have to be on God's side'"

-- -- Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright , Reuters, May 21, 2006. "I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy," she said, referring to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. "President Bush's certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different"

"Afghanistan is teetering on becoming a narco-state...it is not the resurgence of the Taliban but the linkage of the economy to drug production, crime, corruption and black market activities which poses the greatest danger"

-- NATO's top military commander in Europe General James Jones. Nonetheless, Jones told the International Herald Tribune, May 20, 2006, "You will not see NATO soldiers burning poppy fields. This is not our mandate"

"The attorney general got caught in a linguistic snare. He took 'national' language to mean what we describe as 'official' language"

-- White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, splitting hairs over Attorney General Gonzales' May 19, 2006 gaffe that "The president has never supported making English the national language." Confusing matters further, the Senate voted the same day to make English the 'unifying' language of the United States

"There was no firefight, there was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), telling the press May 17, 2006, that military sources have informed him that a Pentagon probe will show U.S. Marines murdered 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians last November, including seven women and a 3 year-old girl, the day after a comrade died from a roadside bomb in the area

"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration"

-- A senior federal official, telling ABC News bloggers Brian Ross and Richard Esposito that the FBI is seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations, but it was wrong to say that they were "tracking" calls from journalists. "Think of it more as backtracking," the source said. "The Blotter," May 16, 2006

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick"

-- A senior federal law enforcement official telling reporters at ABC News that the government is tracking the phone numbers they call to expose whistleblowers. "The Blotter" ABC News blog by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, May 15, 2006

"I'm a recovering politician. But you always have to worry about a relapse"

-- Al Gore after a May 15, 2006 Atlanta screening of "An Inconvenient Truth." Five days later he told an audience at the Cannes Film Festival, "I don't plan to be a candidate again for national office... I don't see any circumstances that would cause me to change my mind." Quotes from Atlanta Progressive News, UK/Guardian

"We're doing a heck of a job -- lot better job at getting, at getting, uh, the -- the problem of [immigrant] catch-and-release under control"

-- Karl Rove to the American Enterprise Institute, May 15, 2006, stumbling on realizing he'd just reminded the audience of the last time the administration boasted of "doing a heck of a job"

"The American people like this president. His personal approval ratings are in the 60s... they're just sour right now on the war"

-- Karl Rove to the American Enterprise Institute, May 15, 2006. Just the week before, the CBS News/New York Times poll found Bush personal approval ratings at 29%

"If you have hundreds of millions of phone calls you're trying to track a day, what do you get out of it? Remember, this is the same administration that had the information that could have stopped 9/11 from happening. They didn't translate it until September 12"

-- Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont) on CNN, May 14, 2006

"To put it bluntly, we need more babies. Forget about that zero population growth stuff that my poor generation was misled on"

-- Fox News' The Big Story host John Gibson, May 11, 2006. "Half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call 'gabachos' -- white people -- are having fewer"

"They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them"

-- Why government lawyers didn't seek warrants from the FISA court to obtain phone records of all domestic calls made by Qwest customers, according to a person involved with the negotiations between the NSA and Qwest. The NSA also rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office, according to USA TODAY, May 11, 2006

"We are on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on Fourth Amendment guarantees on unreasonable search and seizure"

-- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) on the NSA obtaining phone records of tens of millions of Americans without a warrant. "What's the big deal? Don't they watch Law & Order?" -- GOP strategist Rich Galen. Both quotes from San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2006

"I cannot conceive of a basis in the law for the government to do what it did"

-- Daniel Solove, a privacy law expert at George Washington University, on the NSA obtaining phone records of tens of millions of Americans without a warrant. San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2006

"The ultimate test [for Bush will be if he] walks away from the vice president on this"

-- Former NSA and CIA director Ret. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who believes Cheney is behind the Bush Administration's policy on unauthorized domestic wiretaps. Inman told a panel that Cheney, who was chief of staff to President Ford, never really agreed with the 1978 FISA restrictions established under Carter. Wired News, May 9, 2006

"We never thought that we would reach a day when we would see Shiites and Sunnis fighting"

-- Halale Ubaidi, a Shiite woman in Baghdad who married a Sunni. Both sons were kidnapped because they were raised as Sunnis, and 29 year-old Haitham was found dead five days later in a Shiite neighborhood dump. His captors had shot him 14 times, gouged one of his eyes, cut his face with a razor, smashed his skull, broken his jaw, slit his back and cut off his penis. LA Times, May 7, 2006

"This administration may be over"

-- Lance Tarrance, a chief architect of the Republicans' 1960s and '70s Southern strategy, on Bush's dismal approval ratings. Washington Post, May 7, 2006. The following day, a USATODAY/Gallup Poll reported Bush at a new low of 31/65% approval/disapproval. This -34 point gap surpasses Carter's worst of -31 points, and Bush's poor ratings are now exceeded only by Nixon's (-42 point gap) and Truman's (-43 points)

"We're losing our piñata -- and we never got any candy"

-- A White House correspondent at the going away party for Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Slate, May 5, 2006

"War is terrible. But it, war brings out, you know, in some ways it - it - it - it touches the core of Americans who volunteer to go in to combat to protect their - their souls. It touches something unique, I think about our country that there are people who in the face of danger say 'I want to help. I want to - I want to save lives. I want to, uh, serve my country.' And, um, we see that here. We've seen that throughout our nation's history. And we're seeing it here in the 21st century"

-- President Bush on CNBC, May 5, 2006

"I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III"

-- President Bush on the 9/11 actions of passengers on United flight 93. CNBC, May 5, 2006

"They are making a big deal out of nothing... of course he doesn't know how to use it. It's our gun"

-- Army Special Forces colonel ret. Mario Costagliola on the Pentagon's distribution of a Zarqawi outtake video showing him fumbling with an automatic weapon. Experts told the NY Times, May 6, 2006 that the M-249 is hard to use, and even U.S. soldiers need days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Zarqawi was also using an early model that often malfunctioned. "He doesn't look as stupid as they said he looks," Costagliola says

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?"

-- Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran analyst confronting Rumsfeld at an event in Atlanta, May 5, 2006. Rumsfeld responded: "I'm not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction." McGovern: "You said you knew where they were." Rumsfeld: " I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and --" McGovern: "You said you knew where they were [in] Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words"

"Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house [Abu Musab al-Zarqawi] was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp... experimenting with ricin and anthrax... any collateral damage there would have been terrorists"

--

-- Michael Scheuer, who formerly led the CIA's hunt for bin Laden, saying on an ABC-TV program May 1, 2006 that "Mr. Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq"

"Yeah, we take different routes so that 'The Jackal' can't get me'"

-- Dick Cheney to a friend who noted that his motorcade took different routes every day. In Frederick Forsythe's 1971 thriller, disgruntled military officers seek to assassinate their nation's leader for mishandling the occupation of a Muslim country. Cheney quote from June issue of Vanity Fair

"I've been there before, and I can see that he is [angry] -- he's got that look that he's ready to blow"

-- A former top aide to Bush on the president's reaction to Stephen Colbert's biting humor at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. U.S.News & World Report, May 1, 2006

"The sound of enemy gunfire is nothing new to them. I'm sure in battle it's a truce -- GDs [Gangster Disciples] and P Stones are fighting a common enemy. But when they get home, forget about it"

-- Joe Sparks, a retired Chicago Police gang specialist on the concern that gang-affiliated soldiers might bring street-fighting skills from Iraq back to the U.S. Gang graffiti is appearing on walls and military equipment in Iraq, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, May 1, 2006

"Enough is enough. Rice's trip to Iraq at this critical time is just another desperate move by the Americans to try to impose themselves on our new government. But they have lost their influence"

-- Sheik Mahmoud Sudani, an Iraqi politician affiliated with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on the surprise Apr. 26 visit by Rice and Rumsfeld. "We didn't invite them," said Kamal Saadi, a Shiite legislator close to the new prime minister-designate, Nouri Maliki. Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2006

"There's two kinds of Iraqis here, the ones who help us and the ones who shoot us, and there's an awful lot of them doing both"

-- Staff Sgt. Jason Hoover, quoted in The Washington Post, April 29, 2006. "Is it frustrating? Yes, it's frustrating. But we can't just stop working with them"

"The invasion of Iraq hasn't only been devastating to the Iraqi people, but it has been detrimental to the rest of the world... now that Iraq has to import many petroleum products, it's a double whammy"

-- Saadallah al-Fathi, a former OPEC official who advised Iraq's oil ministry under Saddam, when the average oil production was 2.5 million barrels/day, 700,000 more than today. "Oil production was more successful under Saddam, he told AP, April 29, 2006. "There were technical problems. But they were contained. Things were improving slowly. We didn't have sabotage. We had full security in the oil fields"

"Those kids are so well trained, they were just stone faced. They didn't say anything"

-- Deborah Myers, a participant in an exercise session at a Washington DC sports club who saw the Bush daughters "cringing" as the instructor handed out a DVD of "Bushisms," some of which he impersonated for the class. "[Afterwards] I went up to him and said, 'How's it going, dude? Did you know they were in class?' He was horrified," Myers told Roll Call, April 25, 2006. Jenna's boyfriend later called the club and demanded an explanation for the offending comments

"There is no such 'pride of lions' roaming among us today. It is not entirely our fault, our jobs are harder then they were. Our corporate superiors regard our beliefs as quaint, wasteful. Our mission is more daunting than that of our predecessors. It is to save journalism. You and I know this isn't going to be easy"

-- Former LA Times Editor John Carroll on the disappearance of strong editors, such as Ben Bradlee and Gene Roberts, who could stand up to management and focus newspapers on hard news coverage. Carroll told the ASNE conference April 26, 2006 he recently saw "Does Jessica Simpson have a butt double?" as a newspaper headline. "This is a game we can't get into"

"We are in the early stages of what the Pentagon, these days, is calling 'the long war.' There is no end in sight. Our enemies are recruiting and planning and preparing all over the world and we are closing our foreign [news] bureaus down"

-- Ted Koppel speech to the Overseas Press Club, April 20, 2006. "Television news has devolved into essentially what the public would like it to be, and the public, we are told, does not much care for foreign news"

"You just got to recognize there are limits to how much corn can be used for ethanol. After all, we got to eat some. And the animals have got to eat"

-- President Bush, April 25, 2006

"Let me remind you that only 3 percent of the reactor fuel was released into [the] atmosphere 20 years ago. The rest of it still represents the most horrible explosive device undermining the safety of the whole of Europe"

"Only the best residents should return"

-- HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson on the kind of former tenants from New Orleans' former St. Thomas housing complex that should be allowed into the mixed-income development that replaced it. Less than 20% of the new low-rent apartments are set aside for the previous residents, who were already being screened to make sure they were employed and didn't have criminal records. New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 24, 2006

"There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war (also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war"

-- Historian and JFK adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Washington Post, April 24, 2006

"The president has to be like Moe Howard: At some point in every Three Stooges short, Moe slaps both Curly and Larry and says, 'Get to work'"

-- Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, on the closing window of opportunity for Bush. LA Times, April 24, 2006

"I think that it will be ludicrous to limit yourself to just building a wall. We're going back to the Stone Ages here"

-- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling for unspecified hi-tech solutions to stop illegal immigration. "We are landing men on the moon and in outer space using all these great things. I think that other technology really can secure the borders," he said on ABC's This Week April 23, 2006

"Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion"

-- Senator John Kerry, calling April 22, 2006 for the Iraqis to have an "effective unity government" in place by May 15 or the face an immediate U.S. pullout. "If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave"

"It's an amalgamation of a knife fight, a gun fight and three-dimensional chess -- and that assumes that the enemy plays by our rules, and he doesn't"

-- Army Col. David Gray, a brigade commander in the 101st Airborne Division, on the difficulty in keeping peace in the relatively peaceful area surrounding Kirkuk. Reuters, April 21, 2006

"Americans must be prepared for violence to continue in Iraq, even after a government is formed. There will be no Iraqi equivalent of V-E Day or V-J Day"

-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, April 19, 2006. In Oct. 2003, Rice also told the group that Americans must be patient. "Our own history should remind us that the union of democratic principle and practice is always a work in progress," she said at the time

"The current secretary of defense is dismissive, contemptuous and arrogant. Many of us have worked for far tougher and more aggressive men, but those leaders understood leadership, the value of teamwork and that respect is a two-way street"

-- Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, former commander of the 1st Infantry Division, which fought in Iraq for about two years. Batiste is one of six retired generals who have publicly criticized Rumsfeld this week. AP, April 19, 2006

"He didn't worry about the culture in Iraq, he just wanted to show them the front end of an M-1 tank. He could have been in Antarctica fighting penguins. He didn't care, as long as he could send the message that you don't mess with Hopalong Cassidy. He wanted to do to Saddam in the Middle East what he did to Shinseki in the Pentagon, make him an example, say, 'I'm in charge, don't mess with me'"

-- Retired Marine general and Cobra II co-author Bernard Trainor on Rumsfeld. Quoted in the April 19, 2006 Maureen Dowd NY Times column

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense"

-- President Bush, April 18, 2006. "I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision, and Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld"

"Like a colonial power, the Bush administration took Iraq's oil money, and wasted it. The Iraqis well know that. That's one reason why they're shooting at U.S. soldiers"

-- Attorney Alan Grayson, who is suing the security contractor Custer Battles, which a federal jury last month found guilty of $3 million in fraudulent billings in Iraq. Grayson says the Coalition Provisional Authority turned the country into a 'free-fraud zone' by giving U.S. contractors in Iraq immunity from prosecution. Boston Globe, April 16, 2006

"I didn't need Wilson to tell me that there wasn't a Niger connection. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I never believed it"

"I don't think anyone should own 17 alternative papers. And I particularly don't think a company run by people who despise activism, who are not activists and don't think of themselves journalistically as activists, who don't endorse candidates, who don't take stands on issues, who haven't even come out against the war, should be taking over the Village Voice"

-- Tim Redmond, executive editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, on the Voice's merger with New Times Media, a chain of weekly newspapers based in Phoenix. Soon after the takeover, James Ridgeway, the paper's Washington correspondent and one of its chief investigative reporters was fired. Democracy Now! broadcast, April 13, 2006

"Why did Flight 93 ever get off the ground? I mean, you know, it got off the ground after two other planes hit. Why didn't somebody call all these pilots and tell them to stop or close their doors? Why didn't these things happen? What is the responsibility of the airline industry?"

-- Investigative reporter James Ridgeway, author of the recent book, "The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11." Democracy Now! broadcast, April 13, 2006

"A guy goes over and serves his country fighting for eight or nine months, and then we come home and put up with this crap?"

-- Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown, who found he was on the government's secret "watch list" when he tried to board a flight after a tour of duty in Iraq. Brown believes he was red-flagged because Transportation Security Administration screeners found gunpowder residue on his boots that he had picked up during his previous stint in Iraq. Pioneer Press, April 12, 2006

"He does his homework. He works weekends. He works nights... nobody works harder than he does"

"We will jealously guard the real phrasing the way Kleenex and Coca-Cola do. We will sue anyone who says it wrong and make lots of money"

-- Grover Norquist, who is seeking a trademark on "K Street Project" because he says Democrats, and even Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), are using the name in a negative way. The Hill, April 12, 2006

"'Leaker in chief' is something that could stick"

-- A senior GOP aide, who declined to be named for fear of angering the president in the April 17, 2006 issue of Newsweek. The term applied to Bush was coined by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in an Apr. 7 Washington Post story. In the following three days it appeared in over a dozen other newspaper articles and editorials, including a widely-reprinted AP report

"The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision"

-- A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, telling the New Yorker, April 17, 2006, that Bush has quietly briefed a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat, on plans to attack Iran. The House member said that no one in the meetings "is really objecting" to the talk of war. "The people they're briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq"

"I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?'"

-- A former defense official who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, on learning that the White House has ordered plans for "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." New Yorker, April 17, 2006 issue

"People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11, [but] in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran"

-- A military planner on White House plans for a pre-emptive air strike against Iran. Another Pentagon insider quoted in the April 17, 2006 issue of the New Yorker said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped, and believes "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy"

"These numbers are scary. We've lost every advantage we've ever had. The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one"

-- GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio on the April 7, 2006 AP/Ipsos poll showing the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress by a 49-33 margin. Bush had a Bush 36% approval rating, and only 30% approved of Congressional job performance

"I feel like, despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration. And I would hope, from time to time, that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself"

-- North Carolina resident Harry Taylor to Bush, at an April 6, 2006 town hall meeting. "I'm not your favorite guy," the president said. "What's your question?"

"I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action"

-- President Bush on Sept. 30, 2003, about ten weeks after he secretly authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information from a pre-war intelligence report in order to strike back at administration critics. According to Libby's testimony released April 6, 2006, "Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document," even though the information was not made available to the public, only sympathetic NY Times reporter Judy Miller

"How can we discharge our oversight if, every time we ask a pointed question, we're told the program is classified?"

-- Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of "stonewalling" for refusing to answer questions about Bush administration wiretaps. April 6, 2006

"What are we doing? Just drifting day after day after day... People have been able to make mistake after mistake after mistake, and people want to come to the Senate floor and defend it as somehow justifiable"

-- Senator John Kerry on the Senate floor, April 6, 2006. Earlier Kerry's resolution for a withdrawl was attacked by Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colorado) as "not anything that we should take very seriously"

"They couldn't stand each other. They both had huge egos"

"Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave"

-- Senator John Kerry op-ed in the NY Times, April 5, 2006. "So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines -- a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections. Now we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet"

"Nothing worse than a woman know-it-all"

-- Rep. Tom DeLay on Senator Hillary Clinton, April 4, 2006. DeLay was chatting off-camera with MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, who told him that a focus group on possible Democratic presidential candidates called Hillary a "know-it-all," thought of Edwards as a "rich lawyer," but had good things to say about Kerry

"I was impressed with his comedy routine and ability to tap dance without music. But I was impressed with nothing else about him. He's supposed to be Mr. Straight Talk?"

-- John Wasniewski, an attendee at speech to union leaders by Sen. John McCain, who threatened to walk out over boos and catcalls. McCain told the AFL-CIO group he supported a guest worker program and not withdrawing "prematurely" from Iraq. AP, April 4, 2006.

"You know, ever since the end of the first Gulf War, there have been -- there's been planning by serious officers and planners and others, and policies put in place. Ten years worth of planning, you know, were thrown away; troop levels dismissed out of hand; General Shinseki basically insulted for speaking the truth and giving a, an honest opinion; the lack of cohesive approach to how we deal with the aftermath; the political, economic, social reconstruction of a nation, which is no small task; a belief in these exiles that anyone in the region, anyone that had any knowledge would tell you were not credible on the ground; and on and on and on. Decisions to disband the army that were not in the initial plans. I mean there's a series of disastrous mistakes. We just heard the secretary of state say these were tactical mistakes. These were not tactical mistakes. These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policy made back here. Don't blame the troops. They're the ones that perform the tactics on the ground. They've been magnificent. If anything saves this, it will be them"

-- Retired Marine Gen. and former head of CENTCOM Zinni on Meet the Press, April 2, 2006

"To say that this threat was imminent or grave and gathering, seemed like a great exaggeration to me"

-- Retired Marine Gen. and former head of CENTCOM Zinni on the threat posed by Saddam before the invasion. "I'd be the first to say we had to assume [Saddam] had WMD left over that wasn't accounted for: artillery rounds, chemical rounds, a SCUD missile or two. But these things, over time, degrade. These things did not present operational or strategic level threats at best." Also on Meet the Press, April 2, 2006, Zinni called for Rumsfeld to resign

"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented. Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it"

-- John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel, at the Senate hearings to censure Bush. March 31, 2006

"The millions of young men who are prisoners around our country can pick the fruits and vegetables. I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits"

-- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), one of several House conservatives who denounced liberalizing immigration rules. March 30, 2006

"That's the problem in America -- we're always having elections"

-- Senator John Cornyn (R - Texas) on CNN American Morning, March 29, 2006

"No one should play on people's fears or try to pit neighbors against each other"

-- President Bush, speaking specifically on immigration March 27, 2006

"Our faith has always been in direct conflict with the values of the world"

-- Rep. Tom DeLay at the "War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006" conference in Washington, March 29, 2006. "We are, after all, a society that provides abortion on demand, has killed millions of innocent children, degrades the institution of marriage and all but treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity"

"If you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?"

-- Iraq war veteran Jody Casey, who joined peace marchers in New Orleans five days after leaving the military. Casey told the Guardian/UK March 29, 2006, that it was "the total disregard for human life" that bothered him most during his tour of army duty. "I have seen innocent people being killed. IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty tired of that, too"

"I can't defend it. It's a fuckin' disaster"

-- Deborah Howell, Washington Post ombudsman on the two-day career of conservative blogger Ben Domenech at the newspaper's web site. The 24 year-old co-founder of RedState, the leading Republican blog, resigned after he was exposed as a serial plagarist. Howell was speaking to Star Tribune reporters and editors March 24, 2006

"Iraq is a thousand times more significant than Clinton's worst scandal. Yet the pitch of the Washington war coverage doesn't approach that of the Clinton impeachment. The press corps seems weary and beaten down. Somehow, even when this president is riding low with the public, he still has a way of making the journalists who cover him seem small and powerless"

-- National Journal columnist William Powers, March 24, 2006

"You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack"

-- Laura Logan, chief foreign correspondent for CBS News on CNN's Reliable Sources March 26, 2006

"More Iraqis are dying from the militia violence than from the terrorists. The militias need to be under control"

-- U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, March 25, 2006

"The government could end up being only a few buildings in the Green Zone"

-- A senior Arab minister, who asked not to be named in the March 24, 2006 article in the Independent/UK about Iraq's failure to form a government. "The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area," adding that sectarian cleansing was already underway

"The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government"

-- A senior Iraqi official on the coming "Battle for Baghdad." Also quoted in the March 24, 2006 article in the Independent/UK was Fuad Hussein, chief of staff of Kurdish leader Barzani. "Where you have 3,000 soldiers there will in fact be only 2,000 men [because of ghost soldiers who do not exist and whose salaries are taken by senior officers]," he said. "When it comes to fighting only 500 of those men will turn up."

"Mrs. Bush wanted to do something specifically for education and specifically for the thousands of students flooding into the Houston schools"

-- Jean Becker, spokesperson for former first lady Barbara Bush, who donated to the Katrina Fund with restriction that the money be spent on educational software from a company owned by her son Neil. The controversial software, which cost $10,000 per school, presents short segments on U.S. history using rap music. "[Mrs. Bush] honestly felt this would be a great way to help the [evacuee] students," Becker told the Houston Chronicle March 22, 2006

"It's strange that the former first lady would want to do this. If her son's having a rough time of it, couldn't she write him a check?"

-- Daniel Borochoff, founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog group. Houston Chronicle March 24, 2006

"I was taught that it's the Congress that makes the laws and the president is supposed to sign them and he's supposed to enforce them. He's not just supposed to make them up. And on this illegal wiretapping, he apparently just decided that he didn't like things the way there were, and made up his own law. I don't think we can let him get away with that"

-- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) on "The Daily Show," March 22, 2006. "I think it's a pretty mild step to say, by resolution, Mr. President, you did the wrong thing. How about admitting it, and maybe apologizing?"

"They say only two things happen when you wrestle a pig: You get muddy and the pig enjoys it"

-- Jeff Bruce, editor of the Dayton Daily News on Bill O'Reilly, who charged that the newspaper is "friendly to child rapists" because it said due process should be followed to remove a bad judge, exactly as O'Reilly went through the courts when he was sued in 2004 by a former employee for sexual harassment. Bruce added in the March 21, 2006 article, "His producer threatened that unless we published an apology they would resort to their 'bully pulpit.' That's what they've done. This isn't about being 'soft' on child molesters. It's about Bill O'Reilly getting even"

"In 2003 and 2004, I thought the violence would pass and we would be OK. Now I feel as if this will never will end. The situation seems to be only getting worse"

-- Mohammed Hussein, a Baghdad grocer who created a no-parking zone in front of his shop with red packing cord and a couple of metal stands to keep car bombers at bay. Chicago Tribune, March 19, 2006

"The example of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy"

-- President Bush, who spent considerable time at his March 20, 2006 Cleveland appearance praising military operations that restored order in the northern Iraq town. "See, if you're a resident of Tal Afar today, this is what you're going to see: You see that the terrorist who once exercised brutal control over every aspect of your city has been killed or captured, or driven out, or put on the run. You see your children going to school and playing safely in the streets." According to Tal Afar residents interviewed the same day by the Washington Post, Sunni-Shiite secular murders have increased, al-Qaeda has returned and is killing Iraqis who cooperated with the Americans, and two gangs are now active that specialize in kidnapping children. "The Tal Afar mission failed," said Yasir al-Efri, a law student at Mosul University. "The city will turn back to how it was before the battle within two months. The Americans are busy putting cement barriers and barbed wire around their bases and no one is taking care of the infrastructure"

"I flew for an hour and 15 minutes over desert. Wasn't a soul. And that's the territory I guess they're talking about"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), on Bush's recent claim that Iraqi forces would be in control of more than half of the country by the end of the year. Meet the Press, March 19, 2006

"I think we are going to succeed in Iraq, I think the evidence is overwhelming"

-- Dick Cheney on Face the Nation, March 19, 2006. The same day three Iraqi policemen were gunned down in Latifiya and Mosul where two civilians were also killed, another policeman was killed by a Baqouba IED, eight Iraqis, including a child, were killed in crossfire in Duluiyah, two more died in crossfire in Ramadi, an Iraqi man was shot to death leaving a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, 14 executed bodies were found in Baghdad and two Iraqi soldiers were found dead in Kirkuk. Total death toll for the day: at least 33

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is"

-- Former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi in a BBC interview aired March 19, 2006. Allawi added that not only was Iraq moving toward "the point of no return," but "sectarianism will spread throughout the region, and even Europe and the United States would not be spared all the violence that may occur as a result of sectarian problems in this region"

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis"

-- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld op/ed in the Washington Post, March 19, 2006. "This could in the long term create an environment in which an Iraqi Hitler could emerge," predicted then-Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar in Dec. 2004

"Mr. Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his cold warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower"

-- Army major general (ret.) Paul D. Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004. In his March 19, 2006 op/ed in the NY Times, Eaton also called for Rumsfeld's resignation and warned that the Army is "relying on the shell game of hiring civilians to do jobs that had previously been done by soldiers, and thus keeping the force strength static on paper. This tactic may help for a bit, but it will likely fall apart in the next budget cycle, with those positions swiftly eliminated"

"Anyone who thinks the country's most prominent lawyers reflect the views of the people needs a reality check"

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a Mar. 15 speech to New England School of Law students and faculty, saying judges are no better qualified than "Joe Sixpack" to decide moral questions such as abortion and gay marriage. "I brought three speeches, and I decided to give the most provocative one, because this seems to be too happy a crowd." AP, March 15, 2006

"This is not the time to sell guns, only to buy guns"

-- A gun dealer in Baghdad, who says the demand for guns "went way up" after the shrine in Samarra was bombed last month and average Iraqis began stockpiling arms. San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 2006

"I thought I had worried about everything, about me being killed, about my wife being killed. I never thought my son would be killed at his school"

-- Essam Abdulamir, a Baghdad shopkeeper whose 10 year-old son was killed when a mortar hit his school, one of the best in the city. The Iraq Ministry of Education says that 64 children have been killed and 57 injured in 417 attacks on schools since November. Children are also targets for criminal kidnap gangs who snatch them for ransom, with 47 kidnapped since November. London Times, March 14, 2006

"Imagine one cartoon, one cartoon showing Mohammad with a turban with a missile out of it. I mean, we have stuff like that, that is vastly worse against our politicians all the time. It's part of free expression. The fact that this elicited this incredible outpouring of rage just shows the kind of people we're dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it's motivated by demonic power; it is satanic; and it's time we recognize what we are dealing with"

-- Televangelist Pat Robertson on The 700 Club broadcast of March 13, 2006. The segment was removed from the Christian Broadcasting Network website "out of concerns they could be misinterpreted if taken out of context," according to a Robertson spokesperson, who also told AP the following day it was "very clear" that Robertson was "talking about radical Islam"

"May God damn you. You said in the past that civil war would break out if you were to withdraw, and now you say that in case of civil war you won't interfere"

-- Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr message to Rumsfeld. March 13, 2006 interview in Journal of Turkish Weekly reported by UPI

"Bill O'Reilly's agent calls the head of NBC week after week saying, you have got to get Olbermann to stop this, as if for some reason there are rules here"

-- MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann, who has nominated Bill O'Reilly the "Worst Person in the World" 15 times. C-SPAN interview, March 12, 2006

"The president was so excited about Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat. As soon as he saw the title, he said, 'You see? I was right'"

-- Sen. Barack Obama (D- Illinois) at the annual Gridiron dinner, March 11, 2006

"When you hear about a White House official getting busted, you'd hope it would be for something so much better than this, like securities fraud or embezzlement. But robbing a Target? Are you kidding me?"

"You could almost split the Americans into two groups: ones who were complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis, and the others who were in Iraq because the Army was going to pay their college fees. They had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture. The Americans would talk to the Iraqis as if they were stupid... the Iraqis detested them"

-- Ben Griffin, a former member of Britain's SAS counter-terrorist team that worked in Iraq alongside its American equivalent, Delta Force. "As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen." UK/Sunday Telegraph, March 12, 2006

"The Americans had a well-deserved reputation for being trigger happy. In the three months that I was in Iraq, the soldiers I served with never shot anybody. When you asked the Americans why they killed people, they would say 'we were up against the tough foreign fighters'. I didn't see any foreign fighters in the time I was over there"

-- Ben Griffin, a former member of Britain's SAS counter-terrorist team that worked in Iraq alongside its American equivalent, Delta Force. "I said to my troop commander 'would we have behaved in the same way in the Balkans or Northern Ireland?' He shrugged his shoulders and said 'this is Iraq', and I thought 'and that makes it all right?'" UK/Sunday Telegraph, March 12, 2006

"For a guy who did all these evil things that have been so widely reported, it's pretty amazing, considering I didn't know anyone. You're really no one in this town unless you haven't met me."

-- Jack Abramoff, in the April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair. "Any important republican who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying"

"Here's Newt. Newt. Newt. Reagan. More Newt... but Newt never met me. Ollie North. Newt. Can't be Newt - he never met me. Oh, Newt! What's he doing there? Must be a Newt look-alike. I have more pictures of him than I have of my wife. Newt again! It's sick! I thought he never met me"

-- Jack Abramoff, pawing through a box of old photographs with author David Margolick. April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair

"Part of me that likes this. And some of you might say, 'Rush, that's horrible. Peace activists taken hostage.' Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality"

-- Rush Limbaugh, November 29, 2005 broadcast. On Mar. 10, one of the hostages, American Quaker Tom Fox, was found shot to death after being tortured. "These people are liberals, they're warped. Well, I mean, that's why there's -- I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this," Limbaugh added

"They're saying, 'All we've done for you guys, all our purchases, we'll stop it, we'll just yank it'"

"This administration has engaged in secrecy at a level we have not seen in over 30 years"

-- David Gergen, presidential advisor to Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, on CNN's Reliable Sources, March 5, 2006. "We haven't seen it since the days of Nixon. And now what they're doing -- and they're using the war on terror to justify -- is they're starting to target journalists who try to pierce the veil of secrecy and find things and put them in the newspapers"

"That would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child's play"

-- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, telling the LA Times March 7, 2006, that "we have opened the Pandora's box" by overthrowing Saddam, and that Islamist extremists could take over sections of Iraq and expand to other nations in the region

"No matter where you look -- at their military, their police, their society -- things are much better this year than they were last"

-- General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on NBC's Meet the Press, March 5, 2006. "I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at." Asked about the General's statements on CBS' Face The Nation the same morning, Rep. Jack Murtha remarked, "Why would I believe him with all the misstatements and mischaracterizations they've made over the last two years?"

"If all-out civil war breaks out, we could lose our army"

-- Former Senator Gary Hart speaking at the National Constitution Center, March 2, 2006. " If Sunnis and Shiites take to the streets by the thousands, it could literally be impossible to get [the soldiers] out. ... I know that sounds apocalyptic, but it's not out of the question"

"With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by"

"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK. But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone"

-- John Pace, former director of the human rights office at the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, on the growing incidents of torture and killings. "It is certainly as bad," he told AP, March 2, 2006. "It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam"

"I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India, and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world"

-- President Bush televised address to India, March 3, 2006. Pakistan is not an Arab country, is a military dictatorship ruled since General Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup, and has ignored years of demands that it close the madrassas linked to terrorist indoctrination since before the 9/11 attacks

"There are 50,000 professors [in the U.S.]... who are anti-American, they're radicals, they identify with the terrorists, they think of them as freedom fighters. It's a huge danger for the country"

-- David Horowitz, right-wing author on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, March 2, 2006. With 1 out of 8 professors a terrorist sympathizer, Horowitz has thus uncovered even more anti-Americans than Senator Joe McCarthy

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. We pray there's no loss of life, of course"

-- President Bush in a teleconference Aug. 28, the day before Hurricane Katrina struck. "I have kind of a sinking feeling right now in my gut. I mean, I was listening to what people were saying [in the days after the hurricane] and I was believing them that they didn't know, "New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin told Reuters, March 1, 2006. "From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware"

"The mindset downtown was that people were willing to accept that things were pretty bad, but not that they were going to get worse"

-- Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005, when a "steady stream" of dozens of reports warned Bush and others that Iraq's insurgency was intensifying and expanding. "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenario," he told Knight Ridder, February 28, 2006

"And they say there is no sectarian war? What do you call this?"

-- An Iraqi man at the Baghdad's main morgue, where hundreds of unclaimed bodies await identification. Most of the 1,300 bodies that arrived in the five days since the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shiite holy site in Samarra were executed. The morgue totals are over 3x higher than estimates reported by the U.S. military. Washington Post, February 28, 2006

"Those who serve in the prisons of Iraq deserve to know clearly the difference between legal and illegal orders. Soldiers on the ground need a commander in chief who does not seek strained legalisms that 'permit' the use of torture"

-- Anthony Lagouranis, who spent a year in Iraq as an Army interrogator and used dogs to terrify prisoners, on Bush's remarks after signing the McCain amendment on banning torture. Bush said "The executive branch shall construe these sections in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President." Lagouranis quote from NY Times commentary, February 28, 2006

"Suddenly, I was part of the inner circle. Do you know how many people in the country -- how many people in the world -- call me 'Brownie?' One"

-- Ousted FEMA director Michael Brown, on his 15 minutes of basking in the presidential glow. "I'm willing to take the fall for the president, but I wish I hadn't been left on the battlefield," he told NBC News, February 27, 2006

"Bush has his inner compass and doesn't want to disturb it. That's what denial can do to a man"

-- Bruce Buchanan, political analyst and veteran Bush-watcher at the University of Texas on the president's reluctance to clean house, as Reagan did in his secound term. "Instead, he remains in the same loop. It takes a certain kind of self-confidence to shake up your comfort level and bring in new people who might challenge you." Philadelphia Inquirer, February 27, 2006

"[Bush and LBJ] are similar, if you look at Iraq and Vietnam. Johnson got locked into a position on his war, and he couldn't let go of it. And of course, this was ruinous for his presidency. Bush is similarly very stubborn and single-minded - 'I don't accept criticism, I can't be wrong'"

-- LBJ biographer Robert Dallek, Philadelphia Inquirer, February 27, 2006. Three days earlier, Bush praised Iraq's 'liberation' and its 'incredible progress' toward democracy even as most of Iraq was under 24-hour curfew to preven the outbreak of full civil war

"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed"

-- William F. Buckley Jr. February 24, 2006 in National Review Online. "Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans"

"People don't need to worry about security"

-- President Bush, speaking February 23, 2006 on the UAE port protection deal, after it was revealed that the White House had promised loose oversight, including allowing the company to keep records offshore, where they would not be subject to U.S. court order. "This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security of the United States of America," Bush continued

"It was going to be an interview on contraceptives...I had no idea I was going to be asked if I was 'the gay governor'"

-- Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who hadn't watched "The Daily Show" prior to his appearance on the program to discuss his executive order requiring pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency birth-control pills despite their religious beliefs. At one point in the phony interview, Blagojevich is genuinely startled, turning to an aide off-camera and saying, "Is he teasing me or is that legit?" St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 22, 2006

"I think in the popular imagination, declaring war does seem to equate with making war or starting war"

-- Former Justice Dept. lawyer John Yoo, arguing in a February 22, 2006 Heritage Foundation speech that it's a myth that only Congress has power to start a war. "Note that the declare-war clause uses the word 'declare.' It doesn't use the word 'begin,' 'make,' 'authorize,' 'wage' or 'commence' war." Yoo is most famous for his hair-splitting memos redefining "torture" and declaring the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terrorism detainees

"It seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention [in Iraq] itself or the ideas animating it kindly"

"My message to those who work here is we want you to know how important your work is. We appreciate what you're doing and we expect you to keep doing it, and we want to help you keep doing it"

-- President Bush to workers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where 32 workers were laid off earlier in the month, then rehired the day before Bush's February 21, 2006 visit. None of the (not) fired researchers were invited to attend the event

"The problem is the Republicans always want to protect Bush. They don't want to expose him to independent-thinking audiences. They want to shelter him from the truth"

-- Rev. Joseph Lowery, on conservatives who still criticize his comments at the funeral of Coretta Scott King. "The Republicans played politics during Reagan's funeral. Look how political it was. They are just trying to shelter Bush from reality," he told the Washington Post, February 22, 2006

"Mr. O'Reilly will be able to fly first class with the very best satellite phones and fill his water bottles with San Pelegrino"

-- Nicholas Kristof, announcing in his February 21, 2006 NY Times column that readers have pledged $727,568 to send Bill O'Reilly to Darfur. O'Reilly earlier called the columnist a "left-wing ideologue," and refused to consider Kristof's invitation to "visit the world's most awful place" because he was too busy: "I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa"

"It doesn't make sense to create a category of documents that are classified but that everyone already has"

-- Meredith Fuchs, general counsel of the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University, on the reclassification of over 55,000 previously released public documents, including some that were even printed in the State Department's history series. Among the memos and papers are some dating back as far as 1948. NY Times, February 21, 2006

"Don't mess with me Condoleezza. Don't mess with me, girl"

-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his weekly broadcast February 19, 2006 after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the country as one of the "biggest problems" for the Western Hemisphere

"It's no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom -- it's part of the theory of government now"

"We got to deal with issues, of course, when they come up. That's part of -- it's part of Washington. It's part of being the President. There's -- issues come, they go, and they -- but I hope that when it's all said and done, people see me as a strategic thinker"

-- President Bush, February 17, 2006

"If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety"

-- Senator Chuck Hagel (R - Nebraska), a Vietnam war veteran, on five-time draft deferment champ Dick Cheney. AP, February 17, 2006

"Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well ... that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction"

-- Saddam Hussein in a mid-1990s meeting with top aides, heard on tapes obtained by ABC News, February 15, 2006. "In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one? This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq"

"In the Empire, Congress is irrelevant. They come, they talk, they rant, they rave, they vote, but it doesn't mean anything because the emperor controls it all. He doesn't care about the democracy part of it"

-- Filmmaker George Lucas explaining how House Republicans are missing several points in their gag video of virtuous GOP rebels fighting House Minority Leader "Darth Nancy" Pelosi. "The emperor works behind Darth Vader, he doesn't actually stand in front - I say that in fear of getting hit with a lot of buckshot." San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 2006

"They raise the quail on a farm. It's hardly a sport. The quail are slow. You have to stomp on the ground to get them to get up and fly. And you can't not get your limit. If it was that kind of farm, then, whatever the facts are, the Vice President shouldn't have done that. Because he was going to get his limit"

-- Bill Clinton advising Dick Cheney on the sport of shooting caged animals. NY Daily News February 15, 2006

"In retrospect it looks like I got off easy"

-- Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont), who Cheney told to "Go fuck yourself" during a 2004 Senate photo shoot. Roll Call, February 14, 2006

"You shot a guy. Don't blame the sun or the wind or the rotation of the Earth. And for goodness' sake, don't blame Harry Whittington"

-- Mike Leggett , outdoors columnist for the Austin American-Statesman writing February 14, 2006 that Cheney should "Be a man. You shot a guy... unless he pulled the trigger himself, it wasn't his fault. Unless he was invisible, it wasn't his fault. And it wasn't his fault that he didn't 'announce his presence,' either. He was supposedly 30 yards behind you. His only fault was being a human being standing on two legs. He's in the hospital. You're in Washington. And others are making excuses for you. You shot the guy." On Feb. 15 -- five days after the accident and after heavy criticism from conservatives -- Cheney broke his silence and accepted full blame for the shooting

"I'm not sure there is a standard protocol when the vice president shoots someone, but it's fair to say reporters prefer that news be disclosed in a timely fashion"

-- Washington Post White House reporter Peter Baker on the 18-hour delay before anyone in the media was informed about Cheney's hunting accident that left a companion badly wounded. Baker added that the DC press corps was "flabbergasted" by the shooting. Editor & Publisher, February 13, 2006

"You would have to be an idiot to believe that"

-- Supreme Ct. Justice Scalia, on opponents who believe in the concept of a "Living" Constitution. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things." February 14, 2006 speech sponsored by the Federalist Society

"The general rolling over on the part of the American press allowed the war to happen...I think we all know how bad it was"

-- Daniel Okrent, ex-NY Times ombudsman on the media's failures in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Okrent told the Williams College audience February 13, 2006 that he thinks the press is "extremely chastened" by its role

"My first reaction: We're a little late here"

-- Ret. Army Major General Paul Eaton, who was ordered a week after Bush's "mission accomplished" speech to rebuild Iraq's military. "I was very surprised to receive a mission so vital to our exit strategy so late," Eaton told the NY Times, February 11, 2006. "I would have expected this to have been done well before troops crossed the line of departure"

"I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam"

-- Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, saying an Iraqi dictatorship would be preferable to the present situation. "When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos." BBC, February 9, 2006

"I don't really know (how they got away with it). The assumption that we had was that they had to have high political top cover"

-- British Col. Philip Wilkinson, on contractor Custer Battles, which is accused of bilking the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority out of $50 million. One of their contracts was to provide Wilkinson with trucks for moving cash around the country, but some of the trucks were in such bad shape that they were delivered via tow truck. CBS' 60 Minutes, February 12, 2006

"Contrary to Franklin Roosevelt - 'We've got nothing to fear but fear itself'- this crowd is 'All we've got is fear and we're going to keep playing the fear card'"

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton to a convention of United Auto Workers, February 8, 2006. The next day, Rove's top aide had a strategy meeting with the Yonkers mayor expecting to challenge her in this year's election. "While national Republicans don't expect Spencer can beat Clinton, they hope he can do enough to bloody her in anticipation of a possible 2008 presidential run," reported the NY Post

"Well, you can't anticipate everything"

-- VP Dick Cheney on the Bush administration's failure to plan for an Iraqi insurgency following the invasion. PBS Newshour, February 7, 2006

"I'm not sure the pharaoh went to Moses' funeral"

-- Rev. Jesse Jackson on President Bush's attendance at the funeral for Coretta Scott King. Usually protected from critics, Bush heard, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew, and we knew, that there are weapons of misdirection right down here," said Rev. Joseph Lowery, a friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and co-founder of the SCLC. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 8, 2006

"You know what happened to Nixon when he broke the law"

-- Reporter Helen Thomas, asking White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan if President Bush thinks he should obey the laws on seeking warrants for wiretaps. "This is a very different circumstance, and you know that," McClellan responded. "No, I don't," said Thomas. February 6, 2006

"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail"

-- Caitlin Childs, who was arrested for writing down the license plate number of an undercover Homeland Security officer conducting surveillance of a demonstration. Childs and other vegans were picketing a HoneyBaked Ham store in Georgia to protest meat eating. WXIA-TV Atlanta, January 25, 2006

"Especially with politics, it gets more and more borderline on what's in bad faith or good faith"

-- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, on the new policy blocking anyone using House of Representatives computers from altering Wikipedia content. Wales told the Washington Post, February 4, 2006, that profiles of members of Congress had been altered by political foes and to remove campaign pledges. Examples included a Rep's office deleting a promise to step down after four terms and a prankster who changed Sen. Robert Byrd's age to 180

"This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA"

-- Oct. 2005 memo from George Deutsch, a 24-year-old Bush appointee to the NASA press office, demanding that the word "theory" be added after every mention of the Big Bang found in a web tutorial for students about Einstein. "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator." Deutsch resigned Feb. 7 when it was revealed that he faked his resume to falsely show he had graduated from Texas A&M. Quote from NY Times, February 4, 2006

"I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel?"

-- Former Colin Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson on PBS' "Now," February 3, 2006. "It makes me feel terrible. I've said in other places that it was -- constitutes the lowest point in my professional life"

"Just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away"

-- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on "The Long War" described in the Pentagon blueprint for the future known as the Quadrennial Defense Review. AP, February 1, 2006

"After 25 years as a foreign correspondent I know what the U.S. wants from the rest of the world: to forget about it"

-- Newsweek's Paris bureau chief Christopher Dickey, who told a media conference February 3, 2006 that "There's this idea that the U.S. media is controlling the agenda. In fact the U.S. media is dying. Resources, money and staff are being cut back," he said. "Twenty years ago Newsweek had 25 staff in Paris, today it has one: me"

"One day he's going to be aiming nuclear weapons; and what's coming across the Gulf isn't going to be Katrina, it's going to be his nukes"

-- Televangelist Pat Robertson, informing Hannity & Colmes February 2, 2006 that Venezuela is now apparently a nuclear power and president Chavez is an "extreme danger" to the United States that should be taken out "not now, but one day, one day, one day. My premise is, and I think as -- you know, until that comment came out, everybody thought Chavez was a fellow having to do with table grapes in California"

"The President, in using that example, was to just simply do that, to give an example of what would be accomplished if we are successful"

-- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, clarifying in a February 1, 2006 press conference that State of the Union promises that the U.S. would "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past" depended upon multiple best-case scenarios, including a successful hydrogen car in the year 2025

"Unfortunately, the (Iraqi) officers here are much like their soldiers -- they're not in it for any sense of patriotism. They're doing this to get paid"

-- Marine Col. Daniel Newell, head of a squad of U.S. military advisers to Iraq forces. About 500 members of the Iraqi brigade he oversees deserted when they faced combat for the first time, and the Iraqi battalion commander was recently fired for incompetence The casualty rate for advisers in Newell's squad is 20 percent. AP, February 1, 2006

"2245, how many more?"

-- T-shirt showing the number of U.S. soldiers killed to date in Iraq, worn by Cindy Sheehan as Capitol Police rushed her from the House gallery, January 31, 2006. Sheehan, who was invited to attend the State of the Union speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-California), was later arrested for unlawful conduct -- a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. Sheehan's arrest prevented her from hearing the prolonged applause that greeted Bush when he said, "Let us never forget the sacrifices of America's military families"

"You can't please some people no matter what you do. Half the time, they say I'm isolated and don't listen. Then when I do listen, they say I need a warrant"

-- President Bush, joking at the annual Alfalfa Club dinner. Washington Post, January 29, 2006

"You know, one of the -- yeah, I don't think a president can tort -- get -- can order torture, for example. I don't think a president can order the assassination of a leader of another country with which we're not at war. Yes, there are clear red lines, and -- it -- you -- you -- you just asked a very interesting constitutional question. The extent to which a president, during war, can exercise authorities in order to protect the American people, and that's really what the debate is about"

-- President Bush, elucidating his grasp of the limits of presidential power in an interview with CBS News, January 27, 2006

"We are left with a picture of a White House that was plagued by the fog of war"

-- David Marin, the Republican staff director to the House committee investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. "The committee is likely to find a disturbing inability by the White House to de-conflict and analyze information -- and that had consequences." NY Times, January 28, 2006

"The first time you read the 'White Paper,' you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution"

-- Legal analyst Andrew Cohen on the 42-page Justice Dept. defense of Bush domestic wiretapping. "The third time you read it, you wonder if the conservative Supreme Court won't, in the end, somehow recognize its breathtakingly broad view of executive power." CBS News, January 22, 2006

"We're not fighting terrorism in Iraq. We're fighting a civil war in Iraq. We've got to give them an incentive. We fought our Civil War. Let them fight their civil war"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), Pittsburgh Tribune-Review January 26, 2006

"Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news"

-- Aaron Brown, whose four-year period as anchor of CNN's NewsNight ended in November, when network executives gave his job to Anderson Cooper in a bid to push the show's ratings closer to front-runner Fox News. Brown told the Palm Beach Daily News that he tried to give viewers a balanced diet of light and serious news with NewsNight. "But I always knew when I got to the Brussels sprouts, I was on thin ice," he said January 26, 2006

"So the Palestinians had an election yesterday, the results of which remind me about the power of democracy...we're watching liberty begin to spread across the Middle East"

-- President Bush comments on the Palestinian election, January 26, 2006. Also at the press conference, Bush made it clear he intends to ignore the election results. "We'd like [Abbas] to stay in power. I mean, we'd like [him] to stay in office. He is in power; we'd like him to stay in office"

"Maybe he wants something from somebody at the White House, or he wants someone at the White House not to do something"

-- Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, confirming it is Jack Abramoff who is showing magazine editors photos of himself with President Bush. "As a general rule, if you're the president, you don't like pictures out there of you with convicted felons... maybe [Abramoff is] sending some sort of signal out here: 'Hey, I've got this stuff.'" MSNBC Hardball, January 23, 2006

"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue"

-- Defense analyst Andrew Krepinevich, author of a new Pentagon study that concluded that the U.S. military is stretched to the breaking point, and cannot sustain high enough troop levels to win in Iraq. AP, January 24, 2006

"Look, you want us to risk the lives of all our team to come and film the opening of a bridge that was intact before it was bombed in this war anyway, or a school that's had new windows being put in and has been painted. I mean, those are just not reasons to risk the lives of all the people that are involved in trying to tell the story"

-- CBS journalist Lara Logan answering the frequent complaint by the Bush Administration that there aren't enough good-news stories about Iraq. PBS Newshour, January 18, 2006

"The first is, 'It'll never happen to me.' The next is, 'It might happen.' The third is, 'I've been here long enough it's probably going to happen.' And the fourth is, 'I've got to get out of here'"

-- NBC News correspondent Richard Engel, on the fears of kidnapping shared by reporters covering Iraq. Engel told USA TODAY January 22, 2006 that he is personally between "two and three"

"We set out to find an entertaining, engaging talk show host, and his brand of humor and lighthearted approach was one we liked... we want a cordial atmosphere"

-- Ken Jautz, executive VP of CNN Worldwide, on the hiring of right-wing radio talker Glenn Beck to host a new program on CNN Headline News. On Jan. 10, the humorous and cordial Beck called Cindy Sheehan a "prostitute" and "tragedy pimp." Jautz quote from LA Times, January 23, 2006

"This is a significant Pandora's box [Pentagon officials] don't want opened. What we're looking at is hints of what they're doing"

-- Intelligence analyst and author William Arkin on the Pentagon's top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) program spying on Americans in the name of national security. According to documents obtained by Arkin, the database lists anti-war activity such as protests at a strip-mall recruiting office as a "credible" threat. Newsweek, January 30, 2006 issue

" I'm going to go over a lot of things today, and I can take all of your questions, but let me give you the all-encompassing rule: Golf is bad"

-- Instructor at an ethics training session for FBI special agents. Lavish golf outings were Jack Abramoff's lobbying gift of choice. NY Times, January 22, 2006

" Bin Laden ridiculed the president's arguments that we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. I think he raises that as a foreshadowing of what's coming"

-- Michael Scheuer, who formerly led the CIA's hunt for bin Laden, warning that the Bush administration would shrug off the newly released bin Laden audiotape at its peril. Reuters, January 20, 2006

"If you're an optimist, Osama's deep down in a cave. If you're a pessimist, he's in downtown Islamabad two doors down from the president"

-- Ret. Gen. Russ Howard, who headed the counterterrorism program at West Point. Reuters, January 20, 2006

"He sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore. You think that sells in America -- that this war is being fought for the 'Daddy Warbucks?'"

-- Hardball's Chris Matthews, yukking over Osama bin Laden's taped comment that the Iraq War benefits "influential people and war merchants in America, who supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars." January 19, 2006

"Criminal elements within Iraqi society have had almost free rein... criminal elements flourish ... Baghdad is reportedly divided into zones controlled by organized criminal groups-clans"

-- U.S. Agency for International Development (USAid) "conflict assessment" released January 2, 2006. Comments appeared in an attachment to a report asking contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities

"Paper media today are more like sailing ships around 1860 -- still dominant but enjoying their last hurrah. I think it's late in the magazine era"

-- Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey, on the decline of interest in news magazines and as pop culture media interest grows, with People magazine now bringing in 30% of Time Inc.'s profits. "TIME magazine is about everything that matters. People is about things that don't matter but everybody cares about," he told New York Magazine, January 23, 2006

"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans -- the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way"

-- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, January 16, 2006. Nagin later denied the statement was devisive, saying, "New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special"

"The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real...Where we disagree is that we have to break the law or sacrifice our system of government to protect Americans from terrorism. In fact, doing so makes us weaker and more vulnerable. Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows"

-- Martin Luther King Day address by Al Gore, January 16, 2006

"We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States. Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home"

-- Walter Cronkite, saying Bush lost an opportunity to gracefully withdraw from Iraq after Hurricane Katrina. AP, January 15, 2006

"Wouldn't it be interesting to know who Bob Novak was calling in the month that Valerie Plame's name came out? How about Patrick Fitzgerald's phone calls?"

-- Blogger John Aravosis, who legally purchased a list of cell phone calls made by former presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark to demonstrate loopholes in privacy laws. Federal law does not specifically outlaw the unauthorized acquisition of telephone customers' personal data. Chicago Sun Times, January 13, 2006

"Thank God we were able to save the walls from the looters, because everything else was stolen"

-- Iraqi Salahuddin province Gov. Hamed Shekti on the looting of Saddam's most lavish palace compound, which was turned over by Americans Nov. 22 as a symbol of progress made by the new Iraqi government. "The palace was turned over to the Iraqi army units...two weeks later I heard the place was looted. Now who can I accuse of the looting?" Washington Post, January 13, 2006

"Nominees now... come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues"

-- Sen. Joseph Biden (D - Delaware) on the Alito confirmation hearings. "The system's kind of broken," Biden told other member of the Judiciary Committee. January 12, 2006

"You're going to see a plan for withdrawal"

-- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), predicting on 60 Minutes January 15, 2006, that most U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year. "I think the political people who give (Bush) advice will say to him, 'You don't want a Democratic (controlled) Congress. You want to keep a Republican majority, and the only way you're going to keep it is by reducing substantially the troops in Iraq'"

"We should make the government stop this bird migration. This song should be ended. No more flying to the north. Let them stay in the south. All birds should be shot. All our men, our troops, should be called up from Sochi [on Russia's Black Sea coast] to the Crimea [in Ukraine], and all migratory birds should stay where they are. This is not a joke"

-- Vladimir Zhirinovsky, deputy speaker of the Russian Duma, on preventing bird flu. Radio Free Europe, January 12, 2006

"The contract is still open - just not with Mr. Robertson"

-- Avi Hartuv, a spokesman for Israel's tourism minister, saying that Israel invites any Christian leaders other than televangelist Pat Robertson to continue plans to develop a $50 million "Christian Heritage Center." Robertson said Jan. 5 that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for returning land to the Palestinians. "We want to see who in the group supports his (Robertson's) statements. Those who support the statements cannot do business with us," Hartuv told the London Times, January 11, 2006

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation, the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing"

-- NSA whistelblower Russell Tice, who says the Agency probably spied on millions of Americans, not just a few. "That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," he told ABC News, January 11, 2006

"LSD spoke to me. He came to me and said, 'You must find me.' He told me, 'Don't give me to the pharmacologist'"

-- Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, on the Friday afternoon in April 1943 when he first experienced the effects. Hofmann turns 100 Jan. 11. NY Times, January 7, 2006

"We're looking at what we really started on 30 years ago, reconstruction of a court system gone awry"

-- Televangelist Jerry Falwell, urging followers to pressure their Senators to demand confirmation of Alito. "What we've done through these years is coming to culmination right now," he said at a televised January 8, 2006 rally

"The country's on the verge of a civil war"

-- Former top commander in Iraq General Ricardo Sanchez, Jan.3 remarks to soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq during a ceremony held in Heidelberg, Germany.

"This level of violence, I think as we've seen, is an anomaly. We see these spikes periodically...I don't think it's on the brink of civil war"

-- Current top commander in Iraq General George Casey, Jan. 5. Both quotes from Reuters, January 8, 2006

"We really didn't see the insurgency coming"

-- Former Iraq czar Paul Bremer on Dateline NBC, January 8, 2006. "I believe I did everything I could do... The president, in the end, is responsible for making decisions"

"[Ariel Sharon] was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America"

-- Televangelist Pat Robertson, charging Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for withdrawing Israeli forces fom Gaza. In his January 5, 2006 broadcast of "The 700 Club," Robertson also said Rabin's 1995 assassination was the result of his negotiations with the Palestinians. "It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless he was dead"

"I didn't double-source these reports, I sourced them [100 times]"

-- Fox News star reporter Geraldo Rivera, defending inaccurate reporting that 12 W Virginia coal miners survived. Rivera spent about 3 hours at a local church among jubilant friends and relatives of the mine workers. St. Petersburg Times, January 5, 2006

"Family members said he rushed into the church and started waving his arms and shouting 'They're alive, they're alive'"

-- Charleston Gazette reporter Scott Finn, writing January 8, 2006 that Geraldo Rivera invaded "the families' only media-free sanctuary, the church, to stick microphones in their faces and share with them the news that their loved ones were still alive"

"I thought I was having a bad dream"

-- NY Post editor Col Allan, who was awakened by his office around 2:50AM and told that the miners were dead. Allan ordered the headline for the final press run changed from "ALIVE!" to "CHAOS." New York Times, January 5, 2006

"I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap"

-- David Letterman to Bill O'Reilly on CBS' Late Show, January 3, 2006. The following night O'Reilly played segments on his FOX program and claimed it was another example of the "culture war" in America. In his Feb. 27, 2001 column, O'Reilly praised Letterman as "a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy"

"The ones that stay up are completely patriotic and innocuous, and they're fine if you want to read the flag-waving and how everything's peachy keen in Iraq"

-- National Guard Spc. Jason Hartley, who was fined $1,000 and demoted from sergeant for writing a blog while in Iraq. Most blogs now "get shut down almost as fast as they're set up," Hartley says, and required to be approved by the chain of command. Newsday, January 2, 2006

"We do not know the exact quantity of oil we are exporting, we do not exactly know the prices we are selling it for, and we do not know where the oil revenue is going to"

"[Senator John Murtha is] a lovable guy, [but] he's never been a big thinker; he's an appropriator"

-- Senator John McCain, quoted in The New Republic, December 12, 2005 issue. "As we get older, we get more sentimental," McCain says. "And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy"

"Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th"

-- A former senior intelligence official on the CIA's struggle to interpret the flood of tips that came in after 9/11. In one case of "erroneous rendition" now under investigation, agents snatched an innocent college professor who had given an al Qaeda suspect a bad grade. "They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association," a CIA officer told the Washington Post, December 4, 2005

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism...and it was fun"

-- A former counterterrorism official recalling the post-9/11 heyday of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, when the staff quickly ballooned from 300 to 1,200. Key to the operations was the Rendition Group, which kidnapped suspects and took them to Agency-run "black sites" or prisons in friendly countries. Washington Post, December 4, 2005

"The Pentagon and our guys over there have got every right to have good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, even if it's got to be planted or bought"

-- Pat Buchanan on "Hardball," December 1, 2005

"Otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard"

-- Former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, telling AP that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults. November 28, 2005

"I am obviously deeply chagrined that I ever write anything that turns out to be incorrect. I'm deeply sorry that the stories were wrong"

-- Former NY Times reporter Judy Miller on BBC Newsnight, November 30, 2005. Asked if Rove was another source in the Plame leak scandal, Miller said, "I can't talk about the specifics of this case as I might be a witness in a criminal trial"

"We will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats, but one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee"

"Terrorists could take over part of this country and expand from here. And given the resources of Iraq, given the technical expertise of its people, it will make Afghanistan look like child's play"

-- U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, quoted in Newsweek, December 5, 2005 issue

"The President is more determined than ever to stay the course, [but] he doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances'"

-- A former defense official, quoted in The New Yorker, December 5, 2005 issue. Bush has become detatched, leaving more issues to Rove and Cheney, according to the source. "They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway"

"[Bush is talking more] about his feelings about manifest destiny, about a higher calling that he was talking about three, four years ago... is this president going to be capable of responding to reality?"

-- Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on CNN's Late Edition, November 27, 2005. "Is he going to accept... a bad assessment or is he simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10 or 20 years?"

"It's the most helpless feeling I have ever felt... we were the walking dead. It was no longer a matter of making it home alive and in one piece. Just alive would be fine"

-- U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Barker, describing how morale plummeted after 4 men in his unit were killed in 9 days. Los Angeles Times, November 23, 2005

"Morale is a roller coaster. We were all idealistic to begin with, wanting to find Osama bin Laden and Zarqawi, and bring them to justice -- whatever that means. Now we just want to go home"

-- Lt. Rusten Currie, who has spent 10 months in Iraq. Los Angeles Times, November 23, 2005

"If I can help people focus on preparedness... then I hope I can help the country in some way"

-- Ousted FEMA director Michael Brown, who is now offering consulting services in emergency planning. Rocky Mountain News, November 23, 2005

"This is very good indeed ... Encouraging ... Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA"

-- Notes by Cheney found on the margin of a pre-Iraq invasion report by Doug Feith claiming proof of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. National Journal, November 22, 2005

"By turning the discussion of the war into a for-us or against-us proposition, the White House last week showed exactly what kind of debate it wants on the future of Iraq -- none"

"Everybody wants to be at Versailles. Versailles is Washington ... they want to be part of the power structure, and if taking the leak from the official source gets you credit within your news organization ... getting close to Cheney, getting close to Rumsfeld ... if that brings you credit and gets you more promotions, it's a great way to live"

-- John MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's Magazine, quoted in a new book, "Feet to the Fire, the Media After 9/11." AFP, November 22, 2005

"I didn't advocate invasion [of Iraq] ... I wasn't asked"

-- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on ABC's This Week, November 20, 2005. According to numerous sources, Rumsfeld repeatedly advocated attacking Iraq as early as January, 2001. "Sanctions are fine," he is quoted by ex-Treasury Sec'y Paul O'Neill in The Price Of Loyalty, "But what we really want to think about is going after Saddam"

"I have never seen such an outpouring in the 32 years I've been in Congress of support and people with tears in their eyes, people walking along clapping when I'm walking through the halls of Congress, saying something needed to be said"

"We have crossed the line into dangerous territory. I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible"

-- Former CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner on Britain's ITV news, November 18, 2005

"You guys are pathetic. Pathetic"

"It just looks really bad. It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he's become a stenographer for the Bush White House"

-- Eric Boehlert, a Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of a forthcoming book on the administration and the press, quoted in the Washington Post, November 17, 2005

"I don't see anything wrong with that. He doesn't have to disclose every goddamn thing he knows"

-- Former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, defending Bob Woodward for failing to tell his editor that he also knew Plame's identity in 2003. Editor & Publisher, November 16, 2005

"This investigation has cast a constant searchlight that the White House can't turn off the way it has succeeded in turning off the press"

-- Carl Bernstein in The Huffington Post, November 14, 2005. "Their dishonesty and their disingenuousness -- particularly about how we went to war -- as well as their willingness to attack and rough up people who don't agree with them are now there for all to see. They can't turn off this searchlight, which is shining on a White House that runs a media apparatus so sophisticated in discrediting its critics it makes the Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Ziegler press shop look like a small-time operation"

"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action"

-- Senator Pat Roberts (R- Kansas), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on "Fox News Sunday," November 14, 2005. "We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets"

"Going after a lefty audience would be futile. For some strange reason, probably genetic reasons, [liberals] don't listen to a lot of radio and they don't watch a lot of television"

-- NBC Universal President Bob Wright, explaining at a media conference there will never be a cable news channel with a liberal viewpoint. Broadcasting & Cable, November 13, 2005

"America's leaders -- all of us -- need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place"

-- Former Senator and VP candidate John Edwards op/ed in the Washington Post, November 13, 2005. "It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002...The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth"

"I would rather see burning cars than suicide bombings. Next time, though, it could be Kalashnikovs"

-- Hamid Senni, who earned an MBA and worked for Ericsson in Sweden and BP in England, but could not even get a job interview from a French company. Senni, a descendant of poor Algerian immigrants who grew up in France's housing projects, told the Independent/UK, "What's holding us back is discrimination, pure and simple...The kids in those areas see people like me struggling to get a job and say, 'What's the point of going to school?'" November 13, 2005

"He became what we wanted him to be. We put him there, not the jihadists"

-- Loretta Napoleoni, author of "Insurgent Iraq," who says the Bush administration created the myth around Iraq rebel leader Zarqawi in order to support the fiction of a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam. In the current issue of Foreign Policy, she explains this elevated Zarqawi from a little-known training camp instructor to someone with the power to surpass bin Laden and transform al-Qaeda "from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement." UPI, November 10, 2005

"We exist to put commercials on the air. The programming that is put on between those commercials is simply the bait we put in the mousetrap"

-- Ted Koppel, who is retiring from ABC's Nightline after 26 years of broadcasting. Washington Post November 8, 2005

"What are editors for?"

-- Former NY Times reporter Judy Miller, suggesting that she was the scapegoat for false WMD stories. "I think the editors who were in charge of the WMD reporting and of the other pre-war intelligence had left the paper by the time [a recent critical] editor's note appeared. It was the new management that came in and made a determination on the basis of what, I don't know, that there was insufficient vetting and editing of these stories." NPR's "Morning Edition" interview, November 11, 2005

"If I was to make another Terminator movie, I would tell Terminator to travel back in time to tell Arnold not to have another special election"

-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a November 10, 2005 news conference. His spokesman insisted that voters were rejecting the special election itself, not the anti-union, redistricting initatives that the governor forced on the ballot

"This is just the beginning. It's not going to end until there are two policemen dead"

-- Moussa Diallo, a 22 year-old unemployed French-African man in Clichy-sous-Bois, the working-class Parisian suburb where the riots started Oct. 27 following the deaths of two youths reportedly being chased by police. Diallo and others in these towns often have complained about police abuse. "If you're treated like a dog, you react like a dog," Diallo told the NY Times, November 7, 2005

"A whole generation of children just died"

-- Nauman Jahangir, a MD just returned from the Himalayan earthquake region, where UNICEF estimates 17,000 were killed in the Oct. 8 quake, which hit just as the school day was starting. "We didn't see many children between the ages of 7 and 15," Jahangir told the Las Vegas Review-Journal November 7, 2005

"Before, I sold water, flowers, shoes, cars -- but not weapons. We didn't know anything about weapons"

-- Ziad Cattan, a former used-car dealer before U.S. authorities made him procurement chief for the Iraq Defense Ministry. Cattan, who has fled the country and is facing corruption charges by the Iraq government, paid nearly $1.3 billion in sacks of cash for questionable military equipment. LA Times, November 7, 2005

"There was a visible audit trail from the Vice President's office through the Secretary of Defense, down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms ... [stated] 'We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it'"

-- Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson says he was assigned to investigate who authorized practices that led to the abuse of prisoners. Wilkerson also told NPR November 3, 2005, that Cheney's office ran an "alternate national security staff" that sought to undermine the NSC

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them"

-- Memo from Michael Scanlon, former business partner of Jack Abramoff and aide to Rep. Tom DeLay. The memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee November 2, 2005, was sent to an Indian tribe to explain how he would protect their casino by tricking Christian voters into supporting gambling

"The difference from after the Miers nomination was like being at a morgue versus being at a combination of a wedding reception, Super Bowl party and bar mitzvah"

-- Jordan Lorence, a lawyer for the Christian conservative Alliance Defense Fund, on the Alito nomination. NY Times, October 31, 2005

"Again and again, they were asking questions about this article. We had to explain that this was a satire. It was really pathetic"

-- Badr Zaman Badr, an Afghani who was just released from Guantanamo after 35 months in captivity. Badr was arrested for a 1998 humor piece offering $113 for the arrest of President Clinton. Badr told Newsday October 31, 2005, that when one team of interrogators "began to accept that this was satire," another agency would take over questioning and it would start all over again

"If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit. I ama [sic] fashion god"

-- Former FEMA director Michael Brown August 29, 2005 e-mail, one of several messages concerned with his TV appearance and finding a dog-sitter sent to / from his aides as the New Orleans crisis unfolded

"God, they're an odd bunch, these Republicans"

-- Nancy Sladek, editor of Britain's Literary Review, which has an annual contest for bad sex writing in fiction, commenting on passages from a 1996 novel by I. "Scooter" Libby. "The Apprentice" includes a description of a 10 year-old girl forced to have intercourse with a trained bear. The New Yorker issue of November 7, 2005

"[Bush] has done a terrible job as president. I think he is going to be known for being, perhaps, the Millard Fillmore of the last 100 years. I think he has a big hole to climb out of"

-- Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Christian Science Monitor, November 1, 2005

"Suspected liberals had become the new 'Communists' ...What in the world would Edward R. Murrow think of his network now?"

-- Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer who lost her job after the disputed "60 Minutes II" Bush/National Guard report. Quote from her article in the upcoming December issue of Vanity Fair reported in Editor and Publisher, October 31, 2005

"The long nightmare won't really be over until journalists ask themselves: what did we know, when did we know it, and why didn't we tell the public?"

-- NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, October 31, 2005. "These days, there is much harsh, justified criticism of the failure of major news organizations, this one included, to exert due diligence on rationales for the war. But the failures that made the long nightmare possible began much earlier, during the weeks after 9/11, when the media eagerly helped our political leaders build up a completely false picture of who they were"

"The unfortunate thing about this special prosecutor's investigation is that it took him hauling reporters in to court before a lot of the relevant questions about the president were raised in the press"

-- Carl Bernstein in Editor and Publisher, October 28, 2005

"He's old enough to know better. He watched Watergate and Iran-Contra"

-- John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel on Libby's indictments. "To try to pull the leg of the grand jury was really quite remarkable." TIME, October 30, 2005

"He is right back to where he was on Sept. 10, 2001"

-- A former White House official on Bush's declining fortunes, quoted in the NY Daily News, October 28, 2005. Two polls taken that same day show Bush with an average 40% approval and 57% disapproval ratings. A poll taken shortly before the 9/11 attacks show Bush actually had far better ratings at that time: 56% approval and 36% disapproval

"You can't say, 'Please don't be mean to me. Please let me win sometimes.' Give me a break here -- If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people then find something else to do"

-- Bill Clinton at the Texas Book Festival, October 29, 2005

"There's all this talk about the Republican base ... and how it's important to play to the base and please the base and fawn over the base. And look what it gets President Bush. It just gets him a kick in the rear. That's what they've done to him, and they've done it to him at a time when he's vulnerable, and they've done it at the expense of a perfectly fine human being"