"We've got to ask, why is this man [Osama bin Laden] so popular around the world? Why are the people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty? Well, he has been in many countries that are riddled with poverty. People don't have homes, no sewers, no roads, no schools, no health care, no facilities just to make sure that their daily lives were OK. He's been out in these countries for decades building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building health care facilities and the people are extremely grateful. He's made their life better. We have not done that." -- Sen. Patty Murray (D, Wash.), becoming so smitten with the terrorist leader that she's mistaken him for Fidel Castro.

"Because of the technology and the heightened desperation of the world today, I think it's very possible we are facing the first century that will complete itself without mankind. And that's not the future that I want for my children or for their children." -- actor Sean Penn, who doesn't want his grandchildren to have to live in a world without mankind.

"I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." -- Sen. Trent Lott (R, Miss.), shocking the audience at Sen. Thurmond's 100^th birthday party, by endorsing the guest of honor's 1948 presidential run on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket.

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement." -- Sen. Lott, who, if he really wants to put the incident behind him, should begin by explaining what the words were that he meant to choose, and how in the world he managed to choose those other ones by accident.

"We could see Bushes in the presidency well into the 21^st century." -- Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), who lost count of his centuries almost two years ago.

"We literally threatened to attack and planned to attack North Korea if they didn't end their nuclear weapons program ... We reached an agreement with them which they have honored." -- former president Bill Clinton, recalling another one of those "vivid, painful memories" for which he is famous.

"Don't worry about me and terrorism. I'm opposed to it." -- Walter Mondale, taking as firm a stand against our foreign enemies as ever.

"I think that our foreign policy, based on an openly proclaimed intention to dominate the world, is a recipe for getting our country in some of the worst trouble it's ever been in." -- former vice president Al Gore, seeming to confuse President Bush with The Riddler.

"By steamrolling over jurisdictions that do not execute juveniles, the government is adopting the same brutal tactics of which these men are accused." -- Amnesty International USA executive director William F. Schulz, drawing a moral equivalence between mass murderer John Lee Malvo and his victims, in the name of human rights.

"[F]or the first time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government ... is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush now believes he has a mandate ... That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control of their own lives ... It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from the working people to the rich ... It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable ... Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming ... And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture." -- a taxpayer-subsidized PBS editorial by Bill Moyers, who will self-destruct in five seconds.

"That prospect [for embryonic stem-cell research] suffered a political setback last week when a federal advisory committee recommended that embryos be considered the same as human subjects in clinical trials." -- a November 11^th Time magazine article, deliberately using too many words to say that a federal advisory committee has recommended that embryos be considered human subjects in clinical trials.

"I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror." -- actor and ex-convict Sean Penn, in a full page ad addressed to President Bush, in the Washington Post.

"Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine." -- more of Sean Penn, from that same ad, apparently suggesting that Saddam might somehow regain power after being killed or captured by the U.S.

"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed / Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to stay home that day / Why did Sharon stay away?" -- blithering puddinghead and therefore New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka, in one of the more literate stanzas of his alleged poem entitled "Somebody Blew Up America," accusing the Jews of being the real culprits in the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

"We're more expressive than the white guys." -- San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Terrell Owens, suggesting that unsportsmanlike conduct is in black players' blood, in an explanation that would have destroyed his career if he were one of us buoyant people.

"They can't get Osama bin Laden, [so] they're going to get me." -- unelected senator Jean "Mrs. Bones" Carnahan, saving opponent Jim Talent the trouble of morphing her into the probably dead terrorist on a TV ad.

"There's an old saying in the days of slavery. There are those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master. Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house of the master." -- Harry Belafonte, calling the Secretary of State a traitor to his race, for supporting an invasion of Iraq.

"First of all, let me say, Larry, that this was never meant to be a personal attack on Colin Powell's character." -- Harry Belafonte, disavowing his own remarks, instead of apologizing for them, in an interview with Larry King.

"[W]henever somebody within our tribe, within our group, emerges that has the position of authority and power to make a difference in the way business is done, our expectations run high." -- yet more of neo-segregationist Harry Belafonte, again insulting Powell, by demoting him from Secretary of State to Medicine Man.

"But when such an individual is in the service of those who not only perpetuate the oppression, but sometimes design the way in which it is applied, it then becomes very, very, very critical that we raise our voices and be heard." -- one more chorus from Harry Belafonte, making a deliberately vague, ignorant and hysterical accusation against President Bush, the Republicans, and whoever else he's mad at this week.

"Where is Al Qaeda operating? Why aren’t we after him? " -- Rep. Diane Watson (D, Calif.), who voted against the Iraq resolution, because we’re not finished hunting down that scoundrel Al yet.

"Once we can clone exact replicas of ourselves, the next step will be to transfer our memory and personality into our newly cloned brains, which will allow us to truly live forever. " -- Raelian cult leader Claude Vorilhon.

"Misunderstood or immature? " -- a USA Today sports headline about Minnesota Vikings wide receiver and disciplinary problem Randy Moss, not taking into consideration that he might actually be responsible for anything.

"We are not going to allow a declaration of war against Saddam Hussein to be used as a cover for the Bush administration’s environmental offices to declare war on the environment." -- Rep. Edward Markey (D, Mass.), trying to save the environment … or Saddam Hussein … whichever.

"[Israeli President Ariel] Sharon wants to kill me, because he wants to take revenge for what happened in Beirut in 1982." -- Yasir Arafat, who ought to consider that Sharon may want to kill him to take revenge for what happens in Israel on a weekly basis.

"The president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war." -- Rep. Jim McDermott (D, Wash.), who didn’t throw the L-word around so casually when he voted to acquit Bill Clinton on all counts.

"Somebody’s been judge, jury and executioner of my child for a mistake I made." -- videotaped child-beater Madelyne Gorman Toogood, pretending to protect her four year-old daughter from a violent attack by somebody else.

"He [John Walker Lindh] made a mistake. He admits he made a terrible mistake. No one wants to be judged by the worst mistake they made when they were 20 years old." -- Lawyer Tony West, equating his client's taking up arms against the United States to entering a nudie bar with a fake ID.

"Collaborators deserve to die." -- Abu al-Majd, of the Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, telling the Jerusalem Post why he executed two Palestinian women by shooting them in the head.

"People need to have sex." -- Green Party New York gubernatorial candidate Stanley Aronowitz, explaining how he happened to father three children out of wedlock.

"Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world." -- Saddam's favorite U.N. weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, who remains unconcerned that no inspectors have been allowed in Iraq since Bill Clinton's Operation Desert Fox, in 1998.

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health." -- New York city councilman Charles Barron, whose mental health needs a lot more help than that, speaking to demonstrators demanding reparations for slavery in Washington, on Aug. 17^th.

"President Bush announced at his economic summit in Texas that he will not approve $5.1 billion Congress appropriated for homeland security and other emergency needs. Calling on Congress to control spending on one hand, the president also advocated making permanent the tax cut he signed into law and stuck with -- at a cost of nearly $4 trillion during the next decade." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, N.Y.), in an editorial written for the USA Today, demanding "emergency" funding to subsidize New England fisheries, drill wells in New Mexico, and supply a new tank for the worm collection at the Smithsonian -- and at the same time overestimating the "cost" of Bush's 10-year $1.35 trillion dollar tax cut by almost three hundred percent.

"After his being in office for just 18 months, more than $5 trillion of the projected surplus has vanished." -- Hillary Clinton, from that same editorial, perhaps forgetting that she, too, has been in office for those eighteen months.

"Fiscal responsibility means far more than tax cuts." -- Yet more Hillary Clinton, the freest spender of the taxpayers' money in the entire Congress, according to Citizens Against Government Waste.

"If Iraq came across the Jordan River ... I would grab a rifle and get into the trench and fight and die." -- former president Bill Clinton, knowing full well that Iraq, being a stationary mass of land, is going nowhere.

"There are feelings among some that you [Federal appeals court nominee Priscilla Owen] are a judicial activist." -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.), who, if she harbored these feelings herself, would have voted to confirm Owen in a snap.

"Claiming that this [a cloned embryo] is a human person doesn't make any sense outside of a religious context." -- University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan, a believer in non-human persons and human non-persons, but not in life before birth.

"The Republicans have spent so much time this year trying to distract from the real issue, which is election reform." -- Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Maria Cardona, explaining why it's no big deal that at least 850 people have been discovered to have voted in two different states in the 2000 election.

"Look, we should give this man a chance." -- Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, making a plea on behalf of the Man of a Thousand Chances, Yasir Arafat.

"Jesus." -- The legendarily modest Sen. Jim Jeffords(I, Vt.), in response to the question, "Is there a biblical figure that you identify with?"

"When are you [Republicans] going to be honest with people that you have to pay for stuff?" -- Rep. Jim McDermott (D, Wash.), who might direct that question at the leaders of his own party the next time they propose a new federal "stuff" program.

"I might just fade into Bolivia." -- Mike Tyson, when asked about his future plans, after being defeated by Lennox Lewis.

"It's a new day. Communism is dead. It's even dead in Cuba. I hate to say it, it's dead." -- Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.), who, if she believed her own words, would have been a lot more choked up.

"I talked about this [increasing foreign aid] 'til I was blue in the face, and it was a giant yawner for most people before September 11^th. Now people are ready to listen and learn." -- former president Bill Clinton, explaining to a group of New Zealanders that he tried to prevent the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks by appeasing the enemy, but that we stupid, greedy Americans got in the way.

"We are driving down the streets [of Ghana] and people are waving, people are jumping up and down, they are glad to see the United States. If this country doesn't get help, doesn't get the sense of a new beginning, you come back in five years and they'll be throwing rocks at the bus." -- U2 lead singer Bono, trying to extort money from U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

"You [President Bush] have the nerve to go to Miami and speak of honest and clean elections." -- Ricardo Alarcon of the Cuban National Assembly, obviously reading from the talking points left for him by Jimmy Carter.

"It is an obscene comparison, but you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented, and in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here. You will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism [sic] put around your neck. -- Dan Rather, who went ahead and made the obscene comparison anyway.

"It's not a perfect bill, I know that. But you know, no bill ever is." -- President Bush, upon signing a bill to increase farm subsidies by approximately 80 percent over ten years.

"At a time when firearms claim 29,000 lives a year, the Justice Department wants to make personal gun possession a constitutional right." -- a May 9^th op-ed from the USA Today, which needs to send its editorial staff to a remedial civics class.

"We are just not going to allow Republicans to destroy the environment." -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who, in this dream world of his, unties women from train tracks in his spare time.

"I think the public likes its news straight and objective ... They know that no anchor or correspondent can be completely objective on every story, but they appreciate those who try." -- CBS news anchor and part-time Democrat fund-raiser Dan Rather.

"This is a serious place." -- Paula "Zipper" Zahn, explaining why she prefers CNN to the Fox News Channel.

"George Bush ought to listen to his father. It's voodoo economics." -- Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, who is considering a bid for the 2004 Democrat presidential nomination, and would like to see W follow in his dad's footsteps, by signing on to Democrat tax hikes and losing his bid for reelection.

"We fight poverty because hope is an answer to terror." -- President Bush, inexplicably adopting the Clinton-Gore-Powell theory about the "root causes" of evil.

"My only regret is that the jury did not listen to a young lady who had serious allegations." -- Al Sharpton, justifying his involvement in the Tawana Brawley hoax, on the grounds that the fabricated charges were "serious."

"We are finding that the administration has now decided to redefine 'child' and the eligibility extending that definition to an unborn person." -- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R, Maine) of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, unwittingly reverting to the actual definition of "person."

"There are great things to be done on the choice issue. We are now swamped in a very difficult battle over stem cells and so-called therapeutic cloning and that is the avant-garde, that is where the cutting edge is, where we are doing the battle on the ideological issues." -- Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.), also of the RPCC, letting it slip that "choice" means nothing more than killing a human embryo, inside the womb or out.

"We are the majority in our party. We are also, far too often, the silent majority." -- Gov. Jane Swift of Massachusetts, addressing a whopping crowd of 75 people at the RPCC's 2002 national conference in Washington, on Jan. 26.

"He has failed as a leader and his inability or unwillingness to rein in forces of violence and terrorism demonstrates he is not ready or willing to be a leader." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, N.Y.), condemning Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat, although she could just as easily be speaking of another disgraced world leader whose wife she adores.

"The evil we now confront is not just the one-time creation of a charismatic leader and his cohorts, or even a handful of regimes. What we deal with now is today's manifestation of an anger welling up from deep layers of grievance shared by many millions of people." -- would-be president Al Gore, explaining that people who want to blow us up aren't without their reasons.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that Governor [Bill] Owens brings the spirit of the Taliban to Colorado." -- late-term abortion specialist and general ghoul Warren Hern, protesting Gov. Owens' cuts in taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.

"If you're half-evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil." -- Norman Mailer, who seems to understand the mind of the half-evil pretty well.

"We have to go after poverty. We have to go after despair. We have to go after hopelessness." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell at the World Economic Forum, explaining his strategy for preventing terrorism, by getting to the "root causes" of mass-murdering hijackers.

"When we left office, we left the potential of a verifiable agreement to stop the export of missile technology abroad on the table." -- Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State from the Clinton administration, the leading exporter of missile technology to Red China.

"If the nation's largest bankruptcy coupled with a clear example of paid political influence isn't a prime case for reform, I don't know what is." -- House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D, Mo.), who doesn't know what is, citing the Bush administration's refusal to bail out Enron as "a clear example of paid political influence."

"The most important role any of us ever gets to play is that of a human being." -- Bill Clinton, who doesn't realize that he's the only one who's pretending.

"The symbolism is far more important than representing the actual people. I think the artistic expression of diversity would supersede any concern over factual correctness." -- Kevin James of the Vulcan Society, a fraternity of black New York firefighters, justifying the multiculturalist revision of the WTC firefighters' memorial, by arguing that the "actual people" involved were not important.

"Gary Condit showed he'd learned nothing about telling the truth from Bill Clinton." -- Crossfire co-host Bill Press, failing to understand that Gary Condit had learned everything about telling the truth from Bill Clinton.

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