Verbatim: May 2, 2005

"My conscience got me."

GEORGE VOINOVICH, Republican Senator from Ohio, on his last-minute decision to postpone a committee vote so he would have more time to explore accusations against John Bolton, President Bush's controversial nominee for U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

"It was absolutely essential to determine what went wrong, up and down the chain of command."

JOHN WARNER, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, on the Army clearing its top commanders in Iraq of responsibility for prisoner abuse there; he has vowed "to examine the adequacy of those reviews"

"We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States. That's just outrageous. And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

TOM DELAY, House majority leader, when asked if he regards any Supreme Court Justices as "activist judges"

"We expect dignity, wisdom, decency, civility, integrity and restraint from our judges. It is time to exercise those same characteristics in our dealings with, and commentary on, those same judges."

THEODORE OLSON, former Solicitor General in the Bush Administration, writing in the Wall Street Journal

"We dropped the ball, but we're not trying to cover anything up."

WALTER WEBER, town clerk of Monticello, Wis., on local officials' forgetting to hold a spring election as required by law

"I think that fellow is still writing for the Times."

PRESIDENT BUSH, after quoting a New York Times article from 1861 that poked fun at Abraham Lincoln's mastery of English, at the opening of the Lincoln museum in Springfield, Ill.

"I didn't want to end up being Governor of California."

BILL RICHARDSON, New Mexico Governor and onetime draft pick of the Kansas City Athletics, when asked why he did not use steroids when he played baseball

Sources: New York Times; Washington Post (2); Wall Street Journal; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; New York Times; AP