Doug at 2012-02-19 18:51:05:

President Kennedy: Goddamn it! How the goddamn hell could this happen? I'm gonna have Powell's head on a platter - next to LeMay's. Kenny, you hear me give the order to go to DEFCON 2? 'Cause I remember giving the order to go to DEFCON 3 but, y'know I must be suffering from amnesia! I've just been informed our nuclear forces are at DEFCON 2. Gen. Max Taylor: They were limited, Mr. President. The orders were limited to our strategic forces... President Kennedy: Max! Gen. Max Taylor: ...in the continental United States. General LeMay is correct. Technically, SAC has the statutory authority... President Kennedy: [slams fist] *I* have the authority! I am the commander in chief of the United States, and I say when we go to war! Bruce Greenwood as JFK and Bill Smitrovich as General Taylor in "Thirteen Days". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y1r41A0jjo

Teddy Pasternak at 2012-02-19 19:34:27:

Nixon (1995) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s62PeTxELL4 HAIG: Congress is considering four articles of impeachment, sir. NIXON: For what?! BUZHARDT: Sir, the charges are serious – first, abuse of power; second, obstruction of justice; third, failure to cooperate with Congress; and last, bombing Cambodia... NIXON: They can't impeach me for bombing Cambodia. The President can bomb anybody he wants. ZIEGLER: That's true... BUZHARDT: Sir, we'll win that one, but the other three... NIXON: You know, Fred, they sell tickets. ZIEGLER: Sir? NIXON: They sell tickets to an impeachment. Like a fucking circus... Okay, so they impeach me. Then it's a question of mathematics. How many votes do we have in the Senate? A beat. Then: HAIG: About a dozen. NIXON (wounded): A dozen? I got half of 'em elected. I still got the South and Goldwater and his boys. I'll take my chances with the Senate. ZIEGLER: We should ... HAIG: Then we'll have to deal with the possibility of removal from office, loss of pension, possibly... prison. NIXON: Shit, plenty of people did their best writing in prison. Gandhi, Lenin... ZIEGLER: That's right. NIXON (beat, glowers darkly): What I know about this country, I… I could rip it apart. If they want a public humiliation, that's what they'll get. But I will never resign this office.

pliny the elder at 2012-02-19 20:03:00:

I wanted to post the Thirteen Days clip, but since Doug beat me to it... Dr Stranglove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlLn0Jj8CQ Cut to: int. War Room. Muffley: Tell him where you are, and that you'll enter the conversation if I say anything that's untrue, but please don't tell him anything more than that. Alexiy, Alexiy, please... I beg you. DeSadeski: I don't have a phone. Muffley: snaps fingers Give him your phone, Frank. DeSadeski: Govorit DeSadeski. continues in Russian, then... I've done as you asked. Be careful Mr. President. I think he's drunk. Muffley: Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Oh, that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then as you say we're both coming through fine. Good. Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. laughs Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country. Well let me finish, Dimitri. Let me finish, Dimitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ... you probably wouldn't have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. I am... I am positive, Dimitri. Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. Well I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. Yes! I mean, if we're unable to recall the planes, then I'd say that, uh, well, we're just going to have to help you destroy them, Dimitri. I know they're our boys. Alright, well, listen... who should we call? Who should we call, Dimitri? The people...? Sorry, you faded away there. The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters. Where is that, Dimitri? In Omsk. Right. Yes. Oh, you'll call them first, will you? Uh huh. Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dimitri? What? I see, just ask for Omsk Information. I'm sorry too, Dimitri. I'm very sorry. Alright! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, alright? Alright. Yes he's right here. Yes, he wants to talk to you. Just a second. DeSadeski: Continues in Russian. Gradually becomes alarmed, then... Das voydaniya... Rests phone on the table before him. Muffley: What... what is it, what? DeSadeski: The fools... the mad fools. Muffley: What's happened? DeSadeski: The doomsday machine. Muffley: The doomsday machine? What is that? DeSadeski: A device which will destroy all human and animal life on earth. Muffley: All human and animal life?

lizswan at 2012-02-19 20:43:29:

FROST/NIXON 2008 A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon. Director: Ron Howard Writers: Peter Morgan (screenplay), Peter Morgan (play) Stars: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen and Kevin Bacon Richard Nixon: These men, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, I knew their families, I knew them since they were just kids. But you now, politically the pressure on me to let them go, that became overwhelming. So, I did it. I cut off one arm then I cut the other and I'm not a good butcher. And I have always mantained what they were doing, what we're all doing was not criminal. Look, when you're in office you gotta do a lot of things sometimes that are not always in the strictest sense of the law, legal, but you do them because they're in the greater interest of the nation. David Frost: Alright wait, wait just so I understand correctly, are you really saying that in certain situations the President can decide whether it's in the best interest of the nation and then do something illegal... Richard Nixon: I'm saying that when the President does it, that means it's *not* illegal! David Frost: I'm sorry?

Teddy Pasternak at 2012-02-20 00:36:07:

Dave (1993) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX3en_Te7K8 DAVE: But unfortunately, money management only gets us halfway to our goal. To find the rest of the money, we're going to have to start making some choices - - some pretty tough choices... SHOT - BOB He seizes Reed's tie, pulling him over. BOB (loud whisper): Choices??? ANGLE - DAVE DAVE: (hearing him) Yes, Bob. Choices... Now the Commerce Department.., SECRETARY OF COMMERCE (sitting erect): Yes, Mr. President? DAVE: (from a card) You're spending forty-three million dollars on an ad campaign to... (reading) 'Boost consumer confidence in the American auto industry.' SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: And it's proving quite effective... DAVE: Does it make the cars any better? SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: No, sir. It's more of a perceptual issue. DAVE (beat): Perceptual? SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Yes, it's designed to bolster individual confidence in a previous domestic automotive purchase. DAVE (beat): Why? SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Well... to shore up product identification and preserve market share. DAVE: So we're spending forty-seven million dollars to make people feel better about a car they've already bought? SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Yes, but I wouldn't... DAVE (indignant): Well I'm sure that's really important, but I don't want to tell some eight- year-old kid he has to sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their cars. (beat) Do you want to tell him that? He gestures toward the TV cameras in the room. SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: Me? Uh, no sir... I sure don't.

Anthony Jackson at 2012-02-20 02:29:58:

It's a fictional president but I love this speech in The Rock when the President is tasked with deciding whether or not to blow up Alcatraz: INT. WHITE HOUSE - OVAL OFFICE - DAY Chief of Staff Hayden Sinclair stands before the desk of the President of the United States. HAYDEN SINCLAIR They need a decision Mr. President. The President (who we don't see) gazes into the East Garden. The President hits his INTERCOM to the room where his cabinet is gathered. INTERCUT WITH THE AUTHORITIES Reactions, as needed: PRESIDENT These past few hours have been the longest, darkest of my life. This is when you wish the buck did not stop here. (beat) A balance between two tragedies. On one hand the fate of a million civilians. On the other, Frank Hummel. That we have ignored or abandoned or marginalized a great soldier like Frank Hummel and that American boys have paid the price of that neglect in blood, is equally real, and equally tragic. HAYDEN SINCLAIR The glass is half full not half empty, sir. No civilian casualties so far. PRESIDENT I don't believe in half full or half empty, Sinclair. There are chemical weapons and there are civilians. And there are men on Alcatraz who've proved they're willing to use the one on the other. (beat) We are at war with terror. Fighting a war means casualties. This is the worst call I've ever had to make. (takes the phone) Air strike approved. http://youtu.be/K6RfnO6ULMQ