“Today, on the Internet and elsewhere, some people, including many who are partisan political operatives, concentrated not on the key questions of the overall story, but on the documents that were part of the support of the story. They allege that the documents are fake.... “The 60 Minutes report was based not solely on the recovered documents, but on a preponderance of the evidence, including documents that were provided by what we consider to be solid sources and interviews with former officials of the Texas National Guard. If any definitive evidence to the contrary of our story is found, we will report it. So far, there is none.”

CBS’s Morley Safer: “You talk about a vision, and it’s some kind of abstract, vague idea. Did his [Ronald Reagan’s] vision include extraordinary deficits? Did his vision include cutting of the budgets for education and a back of the hand in terms of public education?”

King: “History will not be kind to him?”

Safer: “No, I don’t think history particularly will be kind.”

King: “You don’t?”

Safer: “They’ll talk about all that superficial stuff that all of you have been talking about. But when it gets down to the real substance, I don’t think history has any reason to be kind to him.”

“The President’s team knows that it can’t get back to the White House by taking only hard right turns, so it has, as three of its featured speakers, Republicans who have been successful by navigating the middle of the road as well as the right-hand side: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Rudy Giuliani, New York’s former Mayor, and Senator John McCain who often calls himself John Kerry’s best friend in the U.S. Senate. Streetwise New Yorkers may call that the political equivalent of a popular con game in this tough town — three-card monte. But then, that’s also a game in which the dealer almost always wins.”

“To move to the 9/11 Commission, you yourself have acknowledged in the, that Osama bin Laden was not a central focus of the administration in the months before September 11th....Two-and-a-half years later, do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?”

Matt Lauer: "Let me talk about this idea that a rag-tag group — not well-fed, not well-clothed, completely under-equipped as compared to this great British army and the Hessians — could accomplish this. And let me ask you to think about what is going on in Iraq today, where the insurgents — not well equipped, smaller in numbers — the greatest army in the world is their opposition. What’s the lesson here?"

Lynne Cheney: "Well, the difference, of course, is who’s fighting on the side of freedom."

“Tonight, savagery in the streets of Iraq. Ten Americans die in a single day, four of them civilians murdered, mutilated and dragged through the streets. Who is behind this? What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy, it may be, for some, the only job they can find.”

Cynthia McFadden: “There’s the last image of the video where President Bush, or a President Bush look-alike, kisses Saddam Hussein-”

Madonna: “On the cheek.”

McFadden: “On the cheek. What are we supposed to think about that?”

Madonna: “Although, you know, they [President Bush and Saddam Hussein] are very different people serving very different purposes. I think they both have very equally narrow views about how to solve problems and it is all about power, the struggle for oil and the struggle for world domination, and at the end of the day, are they that different? You know what I mean? I don’t want to equate George Bush with Saddam Hussein. But I believe that George Bush and Saddam Hussein are both behaving in an irresponsible manner, so in that respect, they’re alike.”

“We must make it clear that a hundred million women in this country will not have their rights rolled back by political extremists! The far right have already squandered your Social Security! They better put our uteruses in a lockbox and keep their hands off them!”

Byron Pitts: "For Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, tonight’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination is more than merely a day, it’s his destiny. Best understood from the beginning. Back not simply to when John Forbes Kerry was born in 1943 to a Catholic couple from the privileged class, but to that time when America embraced Camelot. Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant has covered Kerry’s career from the start.”

Tom Oliphant, Boston Globe: “I’m absolutely convinced that this all started out of a very sincere belief in President Kennedy’s words.”

John F. Kennedy (1961 Inaugural Address): “Ask not what your country can do for you-“

Pitts: “A gifted athlete and captain of the debate team at Yale, Kerry followed his idol’s lead and enlisted in the Navy in 1966. In Vietnam, Lieutenant John F. Kerry rescued a comrade in combat, killed an enemy soldier, won three Purple Hearts and one Bronze Star. He returned home both angry and ambitious.”

Kerry: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake.”...

Pitts: “The day before his speech, Kerry crossed Boston Harbor with some of his crew mates from Vietnam. His band of brothers. They have one battle left. But tonight the loner will stand alone here in his hometown one more time and look to do what John F. Kerry has nearly always done — find a way to win.”

Dan Rather: “Speaking of angry, have you ever had any anger about President Bush — who spent his time during the Vietnam War in the National Guard — running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?”

John Kerry: “Yup, I have been.”