Verbatim

• "Our budget is a mess. There is a disconnect between the promises of government and our ability to pay for those promises."

Gov. Mark Sanford,

in his State of the State address

• "He sounded like a Democrat. I can wholeheartedly endorse and work for all of the proposals he had."

State Sen. John Land,

on Gov. Sanford's address

• "What we've got is a governor who wants to make real, substantive reform happen and is willing to listen and work with everybody to get to that goal. That's a good thing."

State Rep. Bobby Harrell

OTHERS SAY

Military draft

Coming as it does from a couple of Democratic congressmen, a proposal to revive the military draft is likely to go nowhere. Its most vocal opponent is none other than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and it isn't because Rumsfeld is a Republican. It's because our all-volunteer armed services are vastly better than they were when conscripts were dragged kicking and screaming into the Army, or hastily enlisted in the Navy or the Air Force as less-onerous alternatives. But Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and John Conyers of Michigan are concerned a disproportionate number of minority youngsters constitute the cannon-fodder which soon may be marching into Baghdad. It's a legitimate concern: They're not exactly being forced into the armed forces, but minority kids don't have all the college opportunities young whites do. In greater proportions than gringos do, they join the service for job training or for tuition money.

The Santa Fe New Mexican

Affirmative Action

For an administration that has shown perfect political pitch time and time again since taking office, there was something off-key last week about President Bush's weighing in against a race-based admissions policy at the University of Michigan that is being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court. Affirmative action has taken hit after hit since the 1978 Bakke case. Quotas are gone, as they should be. New formulas are trying to ensure equal opportunity by looking at economic as well as racial disparities. Yet there persists in a wing of the Republican Party a sense of mission to eliminate anything that strikes of giving historically disadvantaged people a chance to level the playing field.

The Mississippi Press

Saddam Hussein

The idea is tempting: Saddam Hussein is granted immunity, he steps down as president and disappears into exile with his family to a designated land. .‘.‘. In reality it is highly likely this will never happen. .‘.‘. Saddam Hussein would never accept such an offer. In addition, exile and immunity for Iraq's president would send the wrong signal to the world and all remaining dictators. Not to bring a war criminal and butcher like Saddam Hussein -- whom human rights groups allege has claimed the lives of a million people -- to justice would be an enormous setback for the international community.

Financial Times Deutschland, Hamburg, Germany

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

• "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

Christopher Dawson

• "Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."

George Meredith

INSPIRATION

• "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."

James 1:19