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Who could forget the riveting moment, during the high Cold War tensions of the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan strode to the White House podium and told the American people that Soviet leader Yuri Andropov had “gone absolutely crazy.” Raising his voice to a yell, Reagan thundered that Andropov was bombarding thousands of people in the middle of Europe “for no reason whatsoever” and warned Moscow that “it better stop.”

No one remembers this, of course, because it didn’t happen. Once upon a time, Americans expected their presidents to be steady hands. Times have changed: These quotes a

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