A Most Exceptional Contrast
Contrast is a bewitching thing. In and of itself, it is nothing - it, like all derivatives, achieves qualities from the realities that deliver it; all the underpinnings of a most unexpected guest.
In one of what must be its rarest forms - it produces unfathomable correctitude. The nature of this correctitude is most wholly dependant upon the constitution of the witness: a pellucid observation for the lucky, a catharsis for the intrepid.
Having spent the past two days reading what I judged as unimpeachable offerings of unfettered commentary (many were exceptional, e.g., Answerman's personally apposite remembrance below), I find the passing of President Regan to be offering a contrast defined by such a gradient, we find it in perhaps a phatasmic company of comparables.
Poe was known to find great tragedy in the proliferation of the written word - not only because he envisioned future pursuits of information exclusive of understanding, but because words, and necessarily phrases, would certainly fall victim to overplay.
We have qualified too many as "great leaders" when we qualify President Regan identically. Not because Regan did not muster every quality requisite of such qualification, but rather because he is one of the so very few to have done so.