“If the Democrats were less interested in finding fault and blaming people for a colossal mistake and if Republicans would stop being superpatriots, it would give a chance for our troops on the ground to operate.”

— Washington Congressman Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, who returned from a recent trip to Baghdad to reverse his previous support for legislation setting a withdrawal schedule for U.S. troops in Iraq.

“We keep wishing we didn’t have to be split up, you know? A lot of us are going to be hard to place, especially us.”

— 77-year-old Comeletta Wavada, who has Parkinson’s disease and requires dialysis, talking about the likelihood that she and her 81-year-old husband, James, who has severe dementia, will be separated from their acquaintances at the bankrupt elder care home where they live but will have to vacate.

“We were in Vietnam for 10 years. … What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense, it’s a distortion.”

— Historian Robert Dallek, after President Bush warned that abruptly leaving Iraq now would expose civilians there to the consequences that befell many South Vietnamese when the United States withdrew from Vietnam three decades ago.

“You can smell harvest coming. You can hear it when the wind blows … . It sounds like the olden days – a woman’s bustle. You hear a dry, crisp rustle.”

— Farm wife Shannon Appel, whose Ritzville-area farming family is looking forward to a wheat crop that’s expected to be more profitable than the recent lean years.

“Unlike Iraq, where the mission and the enemy were clear, I was now faced with a new enemy called budget cuts, rationed resources and misplaced priorities.”

— Spokane native and National Guardsman Daniel Purcell, testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing in Tacoma about the difficulties he faced in the United States getting medical care for wounds suffered in Iraq.

“You can’t just decide to become a member of a tribe and all of a sudden legalize your status.”

— U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera, commenting on two nonrecognized Indian tribes’ practice of selling memberships to undocumented aliens who believe it protects them from deportation.

“This would be a laughable farce but for one serious thing: It is a very dangerous farce.”

— Military analyst Alexander Golts, writing on a Russian language Web site about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that his country routinely deploys nuclear bombers on long-range flights.

“The present law promotes chaos between neighbors and a Wild West attitude that innocent trespassing pets will be shot on sight.”

Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Douglas, in a letter urging Idaho legislators to strengthen a law he says now prevents him from prosecuting animal cruelty cases unless the perpetrator owns or has care of the victim animal.

“If you get a rogue board of health, maybe that is your responsibility.”

— Idaho state Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, raising the idea that the Kootenai County Commission dismiss the seven-member Panhandle Health District board over its support of more stringent septic tank regulations.