Verbatim: Dec. 19, 2005

  • "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces ... If we suppose [this claim] is true, our question for the Europeans is: Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, President of Iran and Holocaust skeptic who last week suggested moving Israel to Europe

    "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis." HAROLD PINTER, British playwright who slammed U.S. foreign policy during his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature

    "If my children were to receive this report card, they would have to repeat a grade." TIM ROEMER, former Indiana Congressman and member of the 9/11 commission that handed out five F's, 12 D's and two "incompletes" among the grades it gave the Bush Administration and Congress for pursuing reforms designed to prevent terrorist attacks in the U.S.

    "If you are going to take a shot at the King, you better be sure you don't miss." JACK KINGSTON, G.O.P. Representative of Georgia, on why Tom DeLay's possible return as majority leader has discouraged others from trying to fill the post he temporarily abdicated until his trial for money laundering--which he is requesting to begin next month--is over

    "They found a fragment, big deal. Am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there's stuff all over the place. It hit an iceberg, and it sank. Get over it." ROBERT BALLARD, undersea explorer who in 1985 declared that the Titanic had broken into two pieces before sinking, on researchers' claims last week that new analysis of the wreckage indicates the luxury liner may have broken into three pieces

    "It is not a criticism, rather a suggestion that he do some exercises and go on a diet, don't you think? I'm doing this for the gentleman's health." FIDEL CASTRO, Cuba's Commander in Chief, on describing Florida Governor Jeb Bush as the U.S. President's "fat little brother"

    Sources: New York Times (2); Washington Post; New York Times; AP (2)