'And Now, Quotations That Said It All . . .'

"Dean is the gift for Republicans that will keep on giving into 2006," adds Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert. He's liking Dick Durbin's contribution, too: The Democratic whip compared the treatment of some prisoners in U.S. custody to something "done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime -- Pol Pot, or others."

" What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. So many people in this arena, here, you know, were underprivileged, so this is working very well for them."

-- Barbara Bush, while visiting Katrina evacuees in the Houston Astrodome.

"Gotta be Bar," says Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. "All you need to know about the worldviews of 41 and 43 is that the family matriarch believes, and says, that hurricane-ravaged poor folks, who've lost loved ones and what little else they have in the world, have caught a lucky break to be camping out in the Astrodome."

As a general rule, the most durable quotes don't require the media to keep replaying them (as was done with Dean's 2004 scream) or a hostile opposition to keep reminding everyone of them (as Bush did to John "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" Kerry). Rather, they stand on their own absurdity, famous last words that hang naturally from the necks of their authors. All the better if they are uttered with conviction, from a bully pulpit.

This year provided another classic in the famous-last-words category. It is the slam-dunk, read-my-lips, I-did-not-have-sexual-relations-with-that-woman 2005 doozie, a Cat 5 quote for the ages:

"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

-- President Bush, during his first visit to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, commending then-FEMA head Michael Brown.

Really, it was never even close. The president's vote of confidence had all the markings: Patently false, it came during a widely viewed event, was uttered by a prominent speaker, played to an unflattering caricature (of both people) and packed supreme irony: Within days, Brownie was no longer doing any job, never mind a heckuva one.

It also bestowed a belittling one-word nickname that would eliminate "Michael Brown" from any future discussion of the president's doomed Master of Disaster.

Plus: Brownie's white dress shirt was buttoned too high and pressed way too well for a hurricane.

Plus: Brownie's last job -- you couldn't invent a better one -- was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.