The West Wing

• Bartlett: "Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus -- I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens. Where was Morris's protection, or anybody else on that airplane? Where was the retribution for the families, and where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this Earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house?! In other words, Leo, what the hell are we doing here?!"
  Leo: "We are behaving the way a superpower ought to behave."
  Bartlett: "Well our behaviour has produced some crappy results, in fact I'm not a hundred per cent sure it hasn't induced it."
  Leo: "What are you talking about?"
  Bartlett: "I'm talking about two hundred and eighty-six American marines in Beirut, I'm talking about Somalia, I'm talking about Nairobi-"
  Leo: "And you think ratcheting up the body count's gonna act as a deterrant?"
  Bartlett: "You're damn right I-"
  Leo: "Then you are just as stupid as these guys who think capital punishment is going to be a deterrant for drug kingpins. As if drug kingpins didn't live their day to day lives under the possibility of execution, and their executions are a lot less dainty than ours and tend to take place without the bother and expense of due process. So, my friend, if you want to start using American military strength as the arm of the Lord, you can do that. We're the only superpower left. You can conquer the world, like Charlemagne! But you better be prepared to kill everyone. And you better start with me, because I will raise up an army against you and I will beat you!"
  Bartlett: "He had a ten day old baby at home."
  Leo: "I know."
  Bartlett: "We are doing nothing."
  Leo: "We are not doing nothing."
  Bartlett: "We're destroying-"
  Leo: "Four high-rated military targets!"
  Bartlett: "And this is good?"
  Leo: "Of course it's not good. There is no good. It's what there is! It's how you behave if you're the most powerful nation in the world. It's proportional, it's reasonable, it's responsible, it's merciful! It's not nothing. Four high-rated military targets."
  Bartlett: "Which they'll rebuild again in six months."
  Leo: "Then we'll blow 'em up again in six months! We're getting really good at it... It's what our fathers taught us." -- (Season 1, Episode 3, A Proportional Response, written by Aaron Sorkin)

• "It was not a space ship from another planet, just another time -- a long since abandoned Soviet satellite. One of its booster rockets didn't fire and it couldn't escape Earth's orbit. A sad reminder of the time when two powerful nations challenged each other and then boldly raced into outer space. What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder? You know that when smallpox was eradicated, it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of this century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in the time when our eyes looked towards the heavens, and with outstretched fingers we touched the face of God." -- President Bartlett (Season 1, Episode 5, The Crackpots and These Women, written by Aaron Sorkin)

• Bartlett: "The Secret Service-"
  Zoe: "The Secret Service should worry about you getting shot!"
  Bartlett: "They are worried about me getting shot -- I'm worried about me getting shot, -- but that is nothing compared to how terrified we are of you. You scare the hell out of the Secret Service, Zoe, and you scare the hell out of me, too. My getting killed would be bad enough, but that is not the nightmare scenario. The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is you getting kidnapped. You go out to a bar or a party in some club and you get up to go to the restroom. Somebody comes up from behind, puts their hand across your mouth and whisks you out the back door. You're so petrified you don't even notice the bodies of two Secret Service agents lying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads. Then you're whisked away in a car. It's a big party with lots of noise and lots of people coming and going and it's a half hour before someone says 'hey, where's Zoe?' Another fifteen minutes before the first phone call. It's another hour and a half before anyone even thinks to shut down all the airports. Now we're off to the races! You're tied to a chair in a cargo shack somewhere in the middle of Uganda and I am told that I have seventy-two hours to get Israel to free four hundred and sixty terrorist prisoners. So I'm on the phone, pleading with Ben Yahbin and he's saying 'I'm sorry Mr President, but Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, period! It's the only way we can survive.' So now we got a new problem, because this country no longer has a commander-in-chief but has a father who's out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Uganda with a gun to her head! Do you get it?!" -- (Season 1, Episode 6, Mr. Willis of Ohio, written by Aaron Sorkin)