Gen. Petraeus: "Senator, the vice president was in Iraq just a couple weeks after that, and he also had a very warm reception."
Mr. Biden: "Did he get kissed? Get a kiss?"
Gen. Petraeus: "I believe he did get kissed when he was there."
Mr. Biden: "I just want to know whether he got kissed, that's all."
4. Sen. John McCain: "We should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies."
3. Gov. Sarah Palin, being interviewed by CBS news anchor Katie Couric:
Miss Couric: "[W]hat newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?"
Mrs. Palin: "I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media."
Miss Couric: "What, specifically?"
Mrs. Palin: "Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."
2. MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "It's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."
1. Former President Bill Clinton: "The country is groaning and moaning and screaming for change."
TURKEY DUE
We'd written on Thanksgiving Day of Ben Franklin's desire for the turkey to become the representative of the United States, not the bald eagle, calling the former a "much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."
Now, Inside the Beltway reader John Lockwood, of Northwest Washington, writes: "Well, the turkey is not entirely without honor in his own country, or even here in Washington, D.C. I enclose two photos I took a few weeks ago. One shows a bas-relief turkey, one of several, decorating the wall of the biggest Agriculture Department building, along the south side of Independence Avenue SW.
"The other is from the little block-shaped memorial, about 5 feet high, dedicated to the 'patentees' or original landowners in the late 18th century, whose farms and lands became the District of Columbia. It is just east of the Ellipse's curving sidewalk, near the Boy Scout Memorial."