Rating: 
Summary: Peggy in Wonderland
Review: I loved this book. Peggy Noonan is a writer of exceptional style and grace. Her White House years reminded me very much of Alice in Wonderland. Here you have a nice, normal girl in the middle of an almost operatic mess. The Reagan White House was full of incredibly characters and I think Peggy does the best job of describing them out of all the Reagan books I've read.
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Summary: Made me regret not being there
Review: I was born the year of "The Revolution", as Ms. Noonan calls it, and this book has made me regret that. After reading it, I wish that I could have been there in Washington to see for myself what she describes in this book. Rarely do nonfictional books demand to be read in the way this one does. Her descriptions of D.C. put you there- you feel the fervency, the air of excitement that comes from working in the most important bastion of freedom Time has ever known. Her narrations make you feel that sense of urgency and hope that coursed through the consciousness of the younger generation who came to Washington D.C. in the early '80s, hoping to make a difference. Ms. Noonan's vivid style and gift for recounting events makes this book a pure joy to read. In my opinion, this is a must-read for journalism majors. It is also a good source of inspiration for those who are considering a job in politics and/ or public policy.
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Summary: Re-live an era when we had a "Real" President
Review: I was in college when Ronald Reagan was elected and his character as well as his policies shaped my political thinking in those formative years. Peggy Noonan re-captures that "magic" time in American History with this enjoyable re-telling by someone who was on the inside. This is no "tell-all" in the 1990's sense of the word; there is no disillusionment here. Peggy Noonan came out of her years of service for Ronald Reagan with more respect for the man than when she went in. If only current ex-White House staff persons could say the same! (See George Stephanapolis -All Too Human) This account of Conservatism's heyday (and America's, and freedom's for that matter) makes me yearn for the time when we had a real man of character in the White House. Ronald Reagan created passion in the country and in those who worked for him, and this book exemplifies that passion. It's accounts of the inner workings of the White House, the inner politics; the changes to major speeches that became history are fascinating. The events come alive and take on a current events feel as policies are shaped behind closed doors, speeches are re-written at the last minute, and repercussions are dealt with. If you want an inside look at a pivotal time in American History and an admiring look at one of our Great Presidents, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Re-live an era when we had a "Real" President
Review: I was in college when Ronald Reagan was elected and his character as well as his policies shaped my political thinking in those formative years. Peggy Noonan re-captures that "magic" time in American History with this enjoyable re-telling by someone who was on the inside. This is no "tell-all" in the 1990's sense of the word; there is no disillusionment here. Peggy Noonan came out of her years of service for Ronald Reagan with more respect for the man than when she went in. If only current ex-White House staff persons could say the same! (See George Stephanapolis -All Too Human) This account of Conservatism's heyday (and America's, and freedom's for that matter) makes me yearn for the time when we had a real man of character in the White House. Ronald Reagan created passion in the country and in those who worked for him, and this book exemplifies that passion. It's accounts of the inner workings of the White House, the inner politics; the changes to major speeches that became history are fascinating. The events come alive and take on a current events feel as policies are shaped behind closed doors, speeches are re-written at the last minute, and repercussions are dealt with. If you want an inside look at a pivotal time in American History and an admiring look at one of our Great Presidents, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: sense of perspective and a healthy skepticism
Review: I'd read this terrific memoir shortly after it came out and really liked it. So having recently read Dutch (see Orrin's review) and wanting to get a more positive spin on the Gipper, I figured this was as good a book as any. But as I reread it I found something really unexpected and stupefying; to a remarkable degree Dutch appears to have been plagiarized from Peggy Noonan. At first I thought it was just the chatty tone and Noonan's habit of imagining scenes from Reagan's life. But then I got to the point where Noonan has a throw away line about Reagan that struck me as awfully familiar and I recalled that Morris uses it as the central metaphor towards the end of his book. Noonan says that a Reagan aide told her that: "Beneath the lava flow of warmth there is something impervious as a glacier". As I noted in my review of the Morris book, he seizes upon this image of Reagan as a glacier, and while I think he uses it to somewhat dubious effect, what really jumped out at me was that he used it at all, and as near as I can tell it's unattributed. Now to give him his due, he claims that in this instance he was merely reproducing his own diary entry from 1998 (Noonan's book didn't come out until 1990) and I suppose he could be the unnamed source of Noonan's quote, but by that point the similarities in the two texts were just getting to be too much for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. One central theme that they agree on seems like it may be a puzzle to biographers and historians for years to come, the question of who Ronald Reagan really was. On this point, though she has nearly a schoolgirl crush on him, Noonan is no more forgiving than Morris. The portrait she paints, though generally positive, is of an affable but fundamentally unapproachable figure. She conveys much the same sense as Morris, that Ronald Reagan presented a facade to the world, essentially playing the role of Ronald Reagan in a movie of his own life. Whatever lay behind the mask was not there for public consumption; it was reserved for Nancy and himself. Now Noonan and Morris, and many critics, are deeply troubled by this. We live after all in an age where the current resident of the White House has no secret self. His presidency has been one long (seemingly interminable) exercise in psychodrama, with himself as the patient and the rest of us as the analysts. And for all the current fashion in singing the praises of the Greatest Generation (see Orrin's review) and their humble service to country, there is a palpable sense that we are dissatisfied with these older folks who don't bare their souls and beg us to feel their pain. It's instructive that when push came to shove, the electorate twice chose Bill Clinton and all his Oprahesque, cathartic, stage show baggage over George Bush and Bob Dole, decent men and competent public servants who couldn't make that same bathetic connection to the voters. It is the generation of Noonan and Morris that is essentially running the country and the culture right now and this is what they seem to want in their politicians. But Reagan, who is actually a little older than most of the WWII generation, came from a time when such openness would have been unthinkable and as the child of an alcoholic father it is hard to imagine how he could ever lay bare his inner being in the way these folks seem to require. This book is great fun, in particular for the acid sketches and loving portraits of the colorful cast of characters who surrounded the Administration. And the Reagan who emerges from the pages is a complex and fascinating bundle of contradictions, a much richer figure than the Reagan that Morris portrays. While Noonan was frustrated by not penetrating his veneer, the man she reveals seems to be worthy of both the hero worship and the partisan hatreds that he summoned forth. Noonan herself is an emblematic representative of her times. The casually liberal kid from Massapequa, Long Island who was so repelled by the excesses and nihilism of her generation that she was driven into the arms of the conservative movement. But at the same time she retained her sense of perspective and a healthy skepticism. As a result she offers a seemingly honest and often quite perceptive insiders view of the frequently unattractive machinations of governance as it was practiced in the Reagan Era. GRADE: A-
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic political commentary on the Reagan White House.
Review: It would be an understatement to say that Peggy Noonan was a fly on the wall of the Reagan White House. Her book shares her innermost feelings and thoughts on being Ronald Reagans head speech writer. If you're a fan of Ronald Reagan you'll love this book. Noonan shares great insight behind some of Reagan's (and later President Bush's) most famous speeches.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book for the wrong reasons
Review: Noonan 's book is a great read, but parts should disturb thoughtful conservatives (and delight frustrated liberals). She basically validates the view that Reagan was distracted, out of touch and lacked a vision beyond a few narrow issues. She, herself, comes off as naive and far from insightful (George Stephanopolous comes off as having learned his lesson in the White House, she does not). Noonan wants desperately for Reagan to be the conservative counterpart to her parents' beloved FDR, which he isn't. Sadly, she also believes much of the hagiography about Reagan's humdrum film career (he wasn't the only second stringer saved by television).
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Summary: Behind the scenes: Who is pulling the strings?
Review: Noonan's observations are paradoxical. She has both a keen perception of politicians with their egos, backstabbing and hidden agendas, and at the same time holds a strangely optomistic view toward the future and the American Public. As a speech writer she knows her stuff, and someone who was thinking of getting into this sort of thing would do well to read this book. She details the process of how speeches are constructed and then how their meaning is subsiquently filtered by staff, State Dept., etc., into a conglomeration of colorless mush. The narritive sounds much like something you might hear around a local D.C. watering hole. I get the impression that Noonan might have been happier simply being a poet, but I for one am glad she took her road less traveled. Besides that, I just like her. You will too.
Rating: 
Summary: Peggy saw a lot
Review: Peggy helped see the revolution through. What she didn't tell us it was a revolution of the rich versus the poor and middle class. Peggy and Ronnie should feel great in the fact that "the revolution" makes it so we either don't have health care or have terrible health care, but still have to pay high premiums for service which should be available to everyone. That "the revolution" put many people out on the street and "the revolution" led to uncalled numerous deaths worldwide to benefit the wealthy. May they rot in hell!
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Summary: lightness of being conservative
Review: Peggy identifies the conservative that I am, the one who is drawn into an hour-long conversation with a building custodian and finds himself richer for it, who sees something alive in a bag in the gutter and would never think to kick it, whose impulse is to write a personal letter encouraging a high school valedictorian who has been restrained from sharing her faith at her commencement ceremony, who apologizes to the Secret Service agent for sneaking in to watch the President give a speech that she wrote, who daydreams about her moment with Gorbachev as a chance to say, "So when are you going to stop throwing innocent people into the gulags?", who doesn't mind drawing a picture of herself nose pointing at the ceiling and snoring during a van ride on a Presidential campaign. I wish she were my cousin so we would have a natural reason to visit every so often and share the joy and lightness of our conservatism.
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