James Fallows Quotations
James Fallows Quotes about:
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Costs Quotes
As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.
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Party Quotes
The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.
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Names Quotes
The President? Hmmm, I wonder who that might be? Could it be, perhaps, the sitting two-term incumbent of the same party holding its convention? The person whose economic and military policies shape the environment the next president will deal with? As best I can tell, in the tens of thousands of words making up the combined remarks of John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Lindsay Graham, the Name That Must Not Be Uttered appeared exactly once...
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Thinking Quotes
If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad.
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Country Quotes
The Olympic Games are for 'the youth of the world,' but they're organized and scored by countries. It's no surprise that countries treat them as vehicles of national pride, and assume that their people will be most interested in their own athletes. So anybody who was saving up to write an angry letter, blog post, or op-ed about NBC's chauvinistic coverage: don't bother! They're actually more above-the-fray than most. Also, their coverage is not shown anywhere except America - I know, it's because I can't get it that I'm watching Women's Air Pistol - so can't ruffle feathers elsewhere.
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Cheer Quotes
Considering all the different ways in which China has interacted with the world in the last 50 years, considering all the challenges ordinary Chinese people have to put up with, it's beneficial and, and, by any rational standard, non-threatening to have national energies channeled into this kind of competition. It's touching to see so many ordinary Chinese crowds cheering for their new heroes.
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Ideas Quotes
The Hawk and the Dove is a wonderful idea for a book, wonderfully carried out. Nicholas Thompson has used illuminating new material to present each of his protagonists in a convincing, respectful, but unsparing way. Even more valuable, he has used the interactions and tensions between Paul Nitze and George Kennan to bring much of American 20th century foreign policy to life, with human richness ever present but with the big issues clear in all their complexity.
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Against Quotes
The limits of our military power must be obvious to all, and domestically we are divided as we have not been since Vietnam. So what should we do now? Can we think honestly about those with grievances against the U.S.? Can we think how to conclude the war in Iraq, how to offset the forces of extremism?