Verbatim: Oct. 25, 2004

“Clearly, John Kerry has made his Vietnam service the foundation of his presidential run. This is an issue that is certainly topical.”

MARK HYMAN, vice president of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s corporate relations, on why the company plans to air on its 62 stations a documentary attacking Kerry’s antiwar activities of 30 years ago. Sinclair argues that the documentary is news coverage, which is exempt from federal equal-time rules

“We do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content.”

SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP, in a company statement last April, explaining why it refused to air a special edition of ABC’s Nightline that consisted of reading the names and showing pictures of each of the 523 U.S. soldiers who had died in Iraq

“You can run, but you can’t hide.”

GEORGE W. BUSH, invoking Joe Louis on the campaign trail, in a reference to John Kerry’s Senate voting record

“George, is that all you’ve got?”

JOHN KERRY, Democratic presidential candidate, using a line from Muhammad Ali in response to Bush’s attacks

“This is a war between the West and al-Qaeda. We are out of that war.”

SEIF AL-ISLAM AL-GADDAFI, son and heir apparent of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in an interview with TIME, on whether Libya will participate in the U.S.-led war on terrorism

“The camp is like an old-fashioned college campus–without the freedom, of course.”

MARTHA STEWART, former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, in a posting on her website about life at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp, where she is incarcerated

“I don’t think creating a system where one person has to go brief another person [who] has to go brief the President works.”

GEORGE TENET, former director of the CIA, opposing the 9/11 commission’s proposal to create an overall director of intelligence who is removed from the day-to-day gathering of information

“In some ways, I’m a bigger nobody than I was before, because … people hate me now.”

MARK DAVID CHAPMAN, John Lennon’s killer, at a parole hearing, on whether his pathological craving for attention has been satisfied

Sources: New York Times; Los Angeles Times; AP (2); TIME; www.marthatalks.com TIME; New York Times