Top Ten 2003

"They're closing us off like it's Escape From New York. They're building a big wall around us, and you can't get in unless you know the password--which is what? 'The city of Baltimore sucks?'" --Club Charles owner Joy Martin on the long closure of the Charles Street Bridge, which finally reopened over the summer (April 2).

2

"I leave the matter of my personal security to the police commissioner. And, like George McGovern said of Tom Eagleton, 'I trust him 1,000 percent.'" --Mayor Martin O'Malley on police Commissioner Kevin Clark. McGovern dropped Eagleton from his 1972 presidential ticket five days after he made that statement (Sept. 10).

3

"I got balls." "Who wants balls?" "Plenty of balls in my hand." --workers at Bingo World in Brooklyn Park (July 9).

4

"We're about as popular as the [former] Iraqi foreign minister." --City Councilman Keiffer Mitchell, D-4th, on anti-incumbent sentiment in the 2003 city primary election. (Incumbents won every City Council race in which an incumbent was running.) (May 14)

5

"To be Miss Maryland you got to be 100 percent ready, because it is a job. It's just like wanting to become the president of the United States." --Maurice Wilson, aka Jada Braxton, on what it takes to be Miss Gay Maryland (April 2).

6

"No. I think we should have set the goal at zero. Our new goal is now zero." --O'Malley on whether his goal to bring the city's murder rate down to 175 by 2002 was too ambitious (June 18).

7

"Why can't you get that through your fuckin' head? It's not illegal." --political-campaign adviser Julius Henson on the illegal tagging of cars by Andrey Bundley mayoral campaign, which Henson oversaw, with the candidate's fliers (Aug. 13).

8

"I must become a weapon of mass destruction with my black despised skin!" --Larnell Custis Butler, in her Da Sistah comic strip (Sept. 24).

9

"Usually the picture you see of Dundalk in the media is a rowhouse with police tape around it." --Greater Dundalk Alliance President Carolyn Jones (Jan. 8).

10

"That [rebellious] spirit is needed, but the bottom line is if it's going to block progress, then we've got to work to silence them." --City Council President Sheila Dixon on how she planned to handle a potential influx of new City Council members elected on anti-incumbent platforms (Sept. 3).

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