“I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now.” —The Gipper

Demo-gogues: “Everything we’ve done over the past six years has been in pursuit of one overarching goal: creating opportunity for all. … What we’ve long understood is that some communities have consistently had the odds stacked against them. … That sense of unfairness and powerlessness has helped to fuel the kind of unrest that we’ve seen in places like Baltimore, Ferguson and New York.” —Barack Obama (Nothing says fairness like gang shootings.)

Non Compos Mentis: “I’ve been watching politics since [Dwight] Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and Obama is my favorite, favorite president. I am just thankful for every day that he’s in office. … I’ve never seen a Congress that has been so obstructive and so contrary and so committed to doing anything that will foul up this administration. I just think it’s an absolute scandal that he has had so little cooperation.” —singer/songwriter James Taylor

Village Idiots: “ISIL’s momentum has indeed been blunted, its ability to mass and maneuver forces degraded, its leadership cells pressured or eliminated, its command-and-control and supply lines severed.” —Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz, whose remark came as jihadists were overrunning Ramadi, Iraq

The BIG Lie: “Make no mistake: [Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims. This was not a religious crime. And it certainly does not reflect true Muslim beliefs. It was a political crime, designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States.” —U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, dismissing Tsarnaev’s jihad motives