Quotes

From the October 2007 issue

“I, Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby encourage citizens of Alabama to pray daily for rain and proclaim June 30–July 7, 2007 as Days of Prayer for Rain. During this time, I encourage all Alabamians to pray individually and within their houses of worship for sufficient rain.”
—official proclamation by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R), June 28

“I’m not proposing an electrified goat fence. I’m just trying—there’s an analogy there.”
—Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) comparing the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border with goat containment on his farm, quoted in the Mississippi Sun Herald, June 21

“As a Republican governor, I could say, ‘Thou shalt do this,’ and the unions would say, ‘Thou shalt go jump in the lake.’ ”
—Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota on life with the teachers’ unions before they started warming to the idea of merit pay, The New York Times, June 18

“I wanted the Colombians to come here to give the Afghans something to aspire to. To instill the fact that they have been doing this for years, and it has worked.”
—Vincent Balbo, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, on the “successful” Colombia model for narcotics control, quoted in The New York Times, May 16