James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. More
James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.
Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.
And I have made it clear to the Iraqi government, just like I made it clear to the American people, our commitment is not open ended.
Vista's worldwide release is greeted in China with in-your-face piracy
Bush's 2007 State of the Union address, annotated by The Atlantic's James Fallows
Bush's 2007 State of the Union address, annotated by The Atlantic's James Fallows
Atlantic correspondent and former Presidential speechwriter James Fallows shares his impressions of Bush's speech
Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.But on the other hand, it turns there are, in fact, circumstances in which the United States can accept the failure of this effort.
We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.A spiritual allusion? Sure. One of the skillful and continuing traits of George W. Bush's rhetoric has been the deft use of religious references that will be noticed by the part of the audience most likely to welcome them and that will skid right past the parts of the audience they might annoy. In many of his early speeches, written on the Michael Gerson watch, the President used "Providence" to similar effect. Like Author of Liberty in this speech, Providence was capitalized in the released versions of the speeches, to make the spiritual resonance clear. But the most startling aspect of the conclusion was the phrase it did not include.
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