Perhaps more than anything, Obama inspires us to want and dream of more.

"If 28 percent of the white male population were in prison, I kind of think we'd be doing something about it."

Stopping global warming is not just about saving the environment for the hunters, fisherman, hikers, and other outdoor enthusiasts of today and tomorrow. Global warming is a matter of national security. Will we live in a world where we must fight our neighbors for fresh water and food?

How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew about this and I did nothing?

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. They can just go to the emergency room."

When I die I want to be buried in Chicago so I can stay active in politics.

"I guess Roger Stone is gone but not forgotten."

It's time to be patriotic about something other than war.

Sorting out the "truth" may seem a treacherous endeavor in such a politically polarized time. But we believe our journalists can play a greater role as an honest broker for voters bewildered by the barrage of campaign talk.

So in a move rare for a news organization, we're dedicating a team of reporters and researchers to meticulously examine the rhetoric of candidates and their partisans, and then make a call: Is the claim true or not?

You might think such work would be standard journalistic fare. But many news organizations can spend less money and get less grief if their political reporting sticks to stenography and puffery.

It's easier to record the words and claims of competing candidates than to vet their accuracy. It's easier to write about the strategy of using negative advertising than to do the painstaking research to sort out whether the claim is actually true or false.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

"The greatest anti-poverty movement in American history is the organized labor movement."

Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things.

"The people reign over the American political world as does God over the universe. They are the cause and the end of all things."

[Vito] Lopez [has] a penchant for endorsing Republicans over Democrats. In recent elections, he backed Rudy Giuliani for mayor, and George Pataki for governor. He also backed his longtime ally, former Senator Al D'Amato, against Democrat and fellow Brooklynite Charles Schumer in 1998.

Brooklyn assemblyman Vito Lopez, who is pushing hard to win the county's Democratic Party leadership post made vacant by the conviction of his former assembly colleague, Clarence Norman, Jr., has something else in common with Norman: Both men used political campaign committees to pay for their personal cars, and then accepted mileage reimbursement from the legislature - a legal no-no according to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles "Joe" Hynes who won indictments against Norman for that very offense.

State election board filings show that since 1999 the Bushwick pol's campaign committee, "Friends of Vito Lopez," has routinely shelled out $500 a month in leasing costs for his Acura sports car, and another $2800 a year for his auto insurance costs. It also pays more than $200 a month for a luxury dashboard computer service. In addition, the committee picks up a monthly American Express bill for the assemblyman, a tab that runs from $400 to $8,000 a month.