Verbatim: Apr. 18, 2005

By DEPARTMENT Monday, Apr. 18, 2005

    • "This day for me means a new democratic political era in Iraq."

    IBRAHIM AL-JAAFARI, new Prime Minister of Iraq, a Shi'ite, appointed last week by the country's new Kurdish President, Jalal Talabani, capping more than two months of bitter negotiations on ethnic power sharing in Iraq

    "I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid."

    MEL MARTINEZ, Florida Senator, revealing that one of his aides wrote an unsigned memo last month citing the Terri Schiavo case as a "great political issue" for Republicans

    "I said, 'Boy, I'd hate to run against that guy for mayor.'"

    BILL CLINTON, former President, after Pope John Paul II's death, recalling a remark he once made to several Catholic leaders as he watched the Pope work an enthusiastic crowd

    "This is just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me."

    TOM DELAY, House majority leader, responding to a New York Times report that detailed payments of more than $500,000 to his wife and daughter from his political-action and campaign committees. DeLay says the money was for legitimate work they did for his campaign

    "I want him back home, actually."

    MARIA SHRIVER, when asked on TheOprah Winfrey Show about the possibility of her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger's running for the White House if the Constitution is amended to allow foreign-born citizens to become President

    "I have always tried to separate the people who flicked me like a piece of lint off their shoulder when things were tough and the people that I worked with, who I remain very proud of."

    MARY MAPES, ex-producer for CBS's 60 Minutes II, who was fired for her role in a discredited report about the President's National Guard service, after a segment she helped produce on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal won a prestigious Peabody Award

    "Jim, you think he's with Jesus now? We only have 30 seconds."

    LARRY KING,CNN talk-show host, interviewing actor James Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in the film The Passion of the Christ, about the Pope's death

    Sources: New York Times; Washington Post; CBS News; CNN; Los Angeles Times; New York Times; CNN