Verbatim: Dec. 12, 2005

By DEPARTMENT Monday, Dec. 12, 2005

    • "Sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it."

    GENERAL PETER PACE, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, correcting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assertion at a press conference last week that troops witnessing prisoner abuse had no obligation to physically stop the abuse, only to report it

    "The only people whose credibility is at stake are people who are trying to invent issues out of thin air."

    STEVE SCHMIDT, White House aide, on Democrats' questioning the integrity of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito after a 1985 memorandum surfaced last week--that he had neglected to mention on his Senate questionnaire--in which Alito spells out his strategy for "overruling Roe v. Wade" and "mitigating its effects"

    "Very well, let them go to hell."

    JOSE VICENTE RANGEL, Vice President of Venezuela, on several opposition parties' withdrawing five days before the congressional election to protest the government's failure to correct voter-registry errors that could lead to fraud

    "I'd hate to be remembered as that."

    KENNETH BOYD, Vietnam veteran convicted of killing his estranged wife and father-in-law, on the prospect of becoming the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since 1976 when capital punishment was reinstated, two days before he was lethally injected in North Carolina

    "Bruce and I have known each other for years. I don't think he'd be doing this unless he thought we were going to win."

    CARL ICAHN, corporate raider turned shareholder activist trying to force some spin-offs at Time Warner, on hiring investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, who has been credited for his advisory roles in Time Inc.'s mergers with Warner Communications and, more recently, with AOL

    "It became a challenge for all of us. We all want the prison to win."

    PRISCILA MARIA PEREIRA FERREIRA, one of four inmates at a penitentiary near São Paulo who competed in Brazil's government-sanctioned, 10-prison Miss Penitenciária beauty pageant

    "Me and Elvis? Are you kidding? I'm gonna tell my dad. Maybe that will impress him."

    MADONNA, after being informed that she now ties with the King for having the most Top 10 singles ever--at 36 apiece

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