As they see it.

"I'll look back on this one day and remember being there when the first female governor was sworn in, and I was there and I was only in the sixth grade."

--Tina Persinger, 11, to the Daily News-Miner, at the inauguration of Alaska's first female (and youngest) governor, Sarah Palin.

"Break your finger and go to the emergency room, and there you realize all health care is equal.... That's the equalizer, and that's what's happening to the state."

--California Senate President Pro Tern Donald Perata to the Mercury News about the rising costs of health care and the high numbers of the uninsured.

"Our purpose here today is really just to substitute one map for another."

--State Representative David Clark of Utah in The New York Times about his measure to get Utah a fourth congressional seat and Washington, D.C., its first voting seat. Congress adjourned without taking a vote on the proposal.

"You show me where you can pry the cold, bony fingers off the money in Washington, D.C., that fast."

--Beverly Kaufman, Harris County, Texas, clerk, to The New York Times about Congress's ability to help states and counties fund new voting machines before the 2008 election.

What's frightening is that [our undercover agents] are able to purchase a three-pack--a driver's license, a Social...