Verbatim

• Share

'We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret. We apologize.'

LLOYD BLANKFEIN, Goldman Sachs' chief executive, speaking during a conference at which he was named CEO of the Year

'I really don't feel that there's currently liberty and justice for all.'

WILL PHILLIPS, a 10-year-old Arkansas boy who has refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school because he has gay friends who are not afforded equal rights

'We got more than just a whiff. We practically tasted it with the impact.'

PETER SCHULTZ, a professor of geologic sciences at Brown University, on an Oct. 9 satellite crash that NASA says confirms the existence of water on the moon

'The first obligation of a country ... is to save the lives of its countrymen.'

JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO, Spain's Prime Minister, after his nation paid a $3.3 million ransom to Somali pirates in exchange for the release of a Spanish tuna boat and its 36 crew members, who had been held hostage on the Indian Ocean for more than six weeks

'Those are back-assward ways of trying to fix the economy.'

SARAH PALIN, criticizing President Barack Obama's health care and energy proposals during an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters

'Any cloud that crosses me, I'll zap it so that it rains.'

HUGO CHAVEZ, Venezuelan President, on his plan to accompany a team of scientists on a mission to extract precipitation from clouds in an attempt to alleviate a severe drought

'On Dec. 1, we will become man and man.'

JOSE MARIA DI BELLO, of Argentina, who on Nov. 16 was granted a marriage license to wed his partner Alex Freyre in Buenos Aires after a judge ruled that the nation's ban on same-sex nuptials violated its constitution. The union, scheduled for Dec. 1, would be Latin America's first legal gay marriage

TALKING HEADS

Bret Stephens

Defending Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Karzai is [not] a saint or even much of a statesman. But neither is he a despot, a fanatic, a sybarite, or an uncouth bigot--qualities that typify the leadership of countries for which the U.S. has also expended blood and treasure in defense of lesser causes. Our failures in Afghanistan so far have mainly been our own, and they are ours to fix. To blame Mr. Karzai is to point the finger at the wrong culprit in the pursuit of disastrous, dishonorable defeat."--11/11/09

Max Blumenthal

Explaining Sarah Palin's appeal in the Los Angeles Times:

"Her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity ... Palin is perceived by its leaders--and followers--not as another cynical politician or self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of daily life, assuring them that they represented the 'real America.'"--11/15/09

William McGurn