[Valentine Michael Smith]

Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these, “It might have been”. (Thackery, I think)

[Pollster1]

More sad are these we daily see: “It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”

- John Greenleaf Whittier

[And, no, he was not looking at Obama in our White House when he wrote that - but only because that “hadn’t ought to be” hadn’t yet happened.]