Daily Dialogue — February 24, 2012

PRESIDENT: These past few hours have been the longest, darkest of my life. This is when you wish the buck did not stop here. 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. 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.

— President (Stanley Anderson), Hayden Sinclair (David Marshall Grant), The Rock (1996), screenplay by David Weisberg & Douglas Cook and Mark Rosner, story by David Weisberg & Douglas Cook

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is American presidents, suggested by Phil. Today’s suggestion by Anthony Jackson.

Trivia: Quentin Tarantino was an uncredited screenwriter on this film, along with Jonathan Hensleigh and Aaron Sorkin.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Wonder who wrote this dialogue: Weisberg & Cook, Rosner, Tarantino, Hensleigh, or Sorkin?