Overheard, Winter 2006

"There were 2,000 either illegal aliens or their sympathizers… . If it were not for police there, they probably would have killed all 200 of us."

JIM GILCHRIST, head of the anti-immigration Minuteman Project, discussing counter-protesters at a Los Angeles anti-immigration march, on the July 10 edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360"

"Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was, but I'm angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching."

Rev. WILLIAM LAWSON, pastor emeritus of Houston's Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, delivering a July 12 eulogy that compared the late head of Enron Corp., who died before being sentenced for looting the company, to a man dragged to death by white supremacists

"Without [affirmative action, African-American Congresswoman Maxine Waters] would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat."

ANNE COULTER, in her Aug. 9 Universal Press Syndicate column

"It's time to have a Muslims checkpoint line in America's airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it, it's time."

MIKE GALLAGHER, host of the Salem Radio Network's "The Mike Gallagher Show," discussing national security Aug. 15 on FOX News

"God is the one who chooses our rulers. … [I]f you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

Republican Senate candidate KATHERINE HARRIS, the former Florida secretary of state accused of favoring President Bush in the 2000 presidential race, quoted on Aug. 24 in Florida Baptist Witness

"[He] should get a reward that it wasn't a boy. I actually was thrilled to see it was only a girl."

Host MICHAEL SAVAGE, on the Sept. 27 edition of Talk Radio Network's "The Savage Nation," discussing an employee of the ultraconservative Washington Times charged with soliciting a 13-year-old girl for sex

"The real problem [is that] Congressman Mark Foley was a homosexual [and] homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex."

PAUL WEYRICH, head of the conservative Free Congress Foundation, equating the Florida Republican's alleged pedophilia with homosexuality on the Oct. 4 edition of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered"

"This little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their --- sort of their personal preserve."

MSNBC political analyst PATRICK BUCHANAN, on the Oct. 9 edition of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," alleging the existence of a pedophiliac network of gay staffers on Capitol Hill