Verbatim: Mar. 21, 2005

By DEPARTMENT Monday, Mar. 21, 2005

    • "You should have seen him going town to town, country to country, Energizer Bunny here. He killed me."

    GEORGE H.W. BUSH, who traveled with fellow former President Bill Clinton to tsunami-stricken countries shortly before Clinton had postbypass surgery

    "He is, to my mind, the man who, quite frankly--although Dan did a fine job--I would like to have seen him there a long time ago."

    WALTER CRONKITE, former CBS anchor, on Bob Schieffer, who took the helm of CBS Evening News last week after Dan Rather ended his 24-year run as its anchor

    "Pride in homekeeping creates serenity and pleasure. I even experienced it standing around the microwave in the place where I was staying."

    MARTHA STEWART, meeting with her staff at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for the first time since her release from prison

    "It's definitely chemical McCarthyism."

    RANDY WOLF, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, on Congress subpoenaing seven Major League players and four executives to testify at a hearing on steroid use

    "I'm classified as phenomenal."

    SHAQUILLE O'NEAL, basketball star, who was one of four NBA players classified as obese according to the widely used body-mass index

    "When you're trying to encourage 18-year-old kids to exercise freedom of thought, it can be dangerous to remove [Harvard President Larry Summers] for doing just that."

    MATT DAMON, actor, who is 12 credits short of a Harvard degree, on the uproar over Summers' remarks about women in the sciences

    "I'm sorry, I don't know your Prime Minister."

    JENNIFER LOPEZ, asked in Tokyo whether Shall We Dance co-star Richard Gere looks like Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

    "Courage."

    DAN RATHER, ending his final Evening News broadcast

    Sources: New York Times; CNN; Reuters; Washington Post; AP; New York Observer; Japan Today; CBS