Verbatim

'This is about the best he can do. This is a man on the run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes.'

FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, White House aide, downplaying the influence of Osama bin Laden just after he released a video in which he ridicules President Bush

'We too as a society have failed in the educations of these youths.'

EHUD OLMERT, Israeli Prime Minister, after the arrest of eight young neo-Nazis for attacking Jews and foreign workers and announcing their allegiance to Adolf Hitler in recently surfaced videos. The offenders, who each have only distant Jewish heritage, immigrated to the Jewish state from the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s

'Drug traffickers, take note: this is the future that awaits you.'

JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, Colombian Defense Minister, on the arrest of Diego Montoya, the head of the country's most dangerous cocaine gang, who was captured in his underwear during a military raid

'It would have criminalized Jesus Christ.'

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, on a Republican-sponsored bill that would have punished those who aid illegal immigrants

'We're in the law-enforcement business, not show business.'

JOHN ROACH, North Texas district attorney, accusing state police of mishandling a child-sex sting while filming for Dateline nbc's "To Catch a Predator" series

'The country is on the eve of important political events ... I want you to have full freedom of choice, including appointments.'

MIKHAIL FRADKOV, former Prime Minister of Russia, to President Vladimir Putin, after stepping aside in advance of next year's presidential election. His move is Russia's biggest political shake-up in more than three years

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Sources: International Herald Tribune; CNN; Mediaweek; AP (2); Bloomberg