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With mere hours left in 2009, LL has finished his rundown of the 23 most momentous and meaningful quotes of the year. But there’s a few others that didn’t quite warrant a more expanded treatment:
- “We want to encourage you to be close to elected officials in this city.” —Neil Albert, then deputy mayor for planning and economic development, to a roomful of developers at a March 12 D.C. Building Industry Association event.
- “Not only can they indict a ham sandwich, they can convict a ham sandwich.” —ex-councilmember Harold Brazil on May 1, after a Superior Court judge found him guilty of a 2008 assault at a tattoo parlor.
- “In america’s ghetto anacostia… If I get scared i will just yell chinese carry out! They will not shoot me” and “thank goodness my boss is making things easy, he told me to pretend to do work so he can mark me down for hours.” —erstwhile DOES employee David Le, who was fired from his job as a summer-jobs coordinator after posting that to his Twitter account.
- “My answer is that I’m not gonna give you any information.” —Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, queried on Aug. 27 about how his children came to be enrolled at the out-of-boundary Lafayette Elementary School.
- “Spoke to Wapo ed board folks about you today. Told them you are the most qualified person possible, that you have amazing capacity and that everything you do has your hallmark of excellence. They’ll write a good piece for tomorrow.” —Michelle Rhee, in a Oct. 5 e-mail to Ximena Hartsock. The Washington Post indeed wrote a good piece the next day.
- “You’re playing games with the wrong judge.” —U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to Peter Nickles, at a Nov. 17 hearing on the disappearance of police evidence regarding the 2002 Pershing Park arrests.
- “I think it’s clearly political….When you get in the batter’s box, you better be ready for what comes.” —Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray on Nov. 18, addressing reports in the Washington Times about how he hired politically connected developer William C. Smith & Co. to conduct a renovation of his Hillcrest home.
- “I generally don’t have business conversations with the mayor.” —Omar Karim of Banneker Ventures, to a D.C. Council investigative panel on Dec. 11. Moments prior, he had described his relationship to Fenty as “professional.”