Quotes

From the February 2008 issue

“I’m not going to throw my friend under the bus for something he did 25 years ago.…On the other hand, I’m running for president; I’ve got, you know, to do the right thing.”
—presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, defending campaign adviser Philip J. Martin, an Alabama developer who was busted for selling 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979, on Meet the Press, November 4. Martin resigned the next day.

“I almost wish we could go back to the days when we never heard their voices.”
—Kate Phillips, editor of the New York Times political blog The Caucus, on the site’s commenters, quoted in The New York Times, November 4

“We are going to kill some people.”
—Tracey Knutson, a lawyer who has advised the Federal Aviation Administration on treating private space companies as adventurers, not travel companies, quoted in USA Today, October 16

“The appearance is that gambling is occurring, even if it’s not. That’s the problem.”
—Ted Penesis, spokesman for the Illinois Liquor Control Commission, defending a crackdown on friendly poker games in bars, quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 10