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Summary: Reliving the Glory That Was The Reagan Revolution
Review: Peggy Noonan's account of life in the Reagan White House is clever, insightful and inspiring. Her vivid descriptons of the West Wing and Executive Office make you feel as if you are sitting right beside her as she crafts the speeches that for many defined the Reagan Presidency. In addition, I enjoyed the autobiographical elements of this book--which included Ms. Noonan's background and formation of her political ideology. In a straightforward, unpretentious style, both Ms. Noonan (and her former boss)remind us that there is still an American dream worth achieving.
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Summary: A delightful account of the Reagan era
Review: Peggy Noonan's autobiography of her years in the Reagan White House is simply a wonderful book. She has an engaging style, penetrating insight, and charming humor. Admittedly conservative, she defends her point-of-view with eloquence and logic. But this must be expected. She was a gifted speech writer. Reagan and Bush senior were fortunate to have the use of her talents. And now we have her account as a valuable historical record. Read it! You will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful account of the Reagan era
Review: Peggy Noonan's autobiography of her years in the Reagan White House is simply a wonderful book. She has an engaging style, penetrating insight, and charming humor. Admittedly conservative, she defends her point-of-view with eloquence and logic. But this must be expected. She was a gifted speech writer. Reagan and Bush senior were fortunate to have the use of her talents. And now we have her account as a valuable historical record. Read it! You will enjoy this book. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Insightful and amusing account of the Reagan White House
Review: Peggy Noonan's memoir of her years in the Reagan White House is beautifully written and highly entertaining. She details the constant struggle between Reagan's speechwriters and his policy drones (the NSC staff is a particular nemesis) to shape the message. In the end, though, Reagan's views come across as his own. It is clear that although he had speechwriters to help him, he was more highly engaged in the speechwriting process than some (see "reader from Atlanta") would have you believe. There are also plenty of examples of where Reagan overruled his timid advisors and spoke out boldly, examples being his Berlin Wall speech and the "Evil Empire" speech. Overall, Noonan's memoirs is a great portrait of some of the pettiness of those who work in government and will makes you yearn again for a President who was "simple" enough to know what he believed without needing a pollster to tell him on every subject from whether to sign a welfare reform bill to where he and his family should take their summer vacations.
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Summary: Candide on the NY-DC shuttle.
Review: Peggy Noonan's political coming-of-age memoir is a delight for anyone, liberal or conservative. Noonan, a resolutely middle-class product of Long Island, New Jersey and Fairleigh Dickinson University, wrote first for Dan Rather, the CBS anchor, and then Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She offers a wonderful recounting of her flirtation with and eventual repulsion from the American left, most vividly in her description of a bus trip to a Washington antiwar protest. It's a dim echo, really, of the intellectual journey taken by her political hero, Reagan. Her recollection of the Reagan speechwriting shop is as compelling as any scene from Toby Ziegler's office in TV's "The West Wing." It rings true and its very exciting reading, even to this day. Also, her practical advice on political speechwriting is useful and valid whether you are a Democrat or Republican. Working in that speechwriting shop, Noonan gave Reagan some of his most successful emotional appeals: The D-Day anniversary paean to "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc," the tribute to the Challenger astronauts. She followed that up with one of the most effective political attacks in US political history, George H.W. Bush's evisceration of his 1988 opponent, Michael Dukakis, at the New Orleans GOP convention. I dock the book one star because of Noonan's lack of objectivity regarding Reagan, whom she loves like a kindly, if remote, grandfather. However, "What I Saw ..." is very much her best work. Her later books are either polemics or treacly valentines. Too bad, because she's such a wonderful memoirist.
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Summary: A Poor Attempt at a Historical Overview
Review: Poor, artless phrasing, combined with pointless detail and endless repetition make this a durge of a read. Even Ronald Reagan, who I've always admired comes off as a boorish clown in this one. Only Peggy lets herself shine. God, what an ego.
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Summary: America... the one we once knew
Review: Presumably, certain Amazon.com critics were closer to the truth than Ms. Noonan, and as such, were more worthy to speak of the Reagan Revolution. On that basis, I guess we should just all toss out the observations of the speechwriter who has been referred to as closest to the mind and heart of the man. But then, PERHAPS... not. Peggy Noonan, despite small-minded, small-sighted, and small-who-knows-the-hell-what-else critics, has written a great first hand account of the RWR years... some might (rightly) observe, the best years America has seen in a generation. And of Reagan, the man, she stated -- also OH SO RIGHTLY -- "Toward mankind, he had the American attitude, direct and unillusioned: He figured everybody is doing as much bad as he had to, as much good as he can. He was a modest man with an intellect slightly superior to the average. His whole career, in fact, was proof of the superior power of goodness to gifts. 'No great men are good men.' said Lord Acton, who was right, until Reagan." If you are one of the 73% who DON'T swoon for philanderers, liars, and socialist ne'er-do-wells, read this volume and dare to reminisce about what it was like to have a real man at the helm of our nation. For the record, I WAS there. And I still well up with tears at the words in his farewell speech... and at the thought of the "shining city on the hill." I still miss the sense of pride we all had for our government and for our country back then. In a small way, this book recalls it. Read it if you want to remember the America you once knew.
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Summary: WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION: A POLITICAL LIFE OFTHEREGAN
Review: THE BOOK ADVERTIZED BY PEGGY NOONAN HAS A TYPO ERROR: WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION: A POLITICAL LIFE OF THE REGAN ERA----SHOULD BE "REAGAN ERA" ! THIS IS MISLEADING AS IT IS ABOOK ABOUT THE FORMER PRESIDENT NOT ABOUT DON REGAN WHO SERVED IN HIS ADMINISTRATION ! DO I QUALIFY FOR A COPY OF MISS NOONAN'S NEW BOOK, "THE CASE AGAINST HILARY CLINTON" FOR FINDING THE ERROR! BETTY TAGGART 33691 CAPSTAN DANA POINT, CA. 92629
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Summary: Very literate, but the partisan cheap shots bring it down
Review: This is a good book, although with some flaws. It's clear that Noonan is a good writer, and a lot of the book is very affecting. It's largely a bunch of sketches strung together by her loose reminescences and/or her exposition of some abstract theory, each taking up a chapter. This makes it very fun to just pick up the book and flip around - the theories are often pretty convincing and the sketches (typical Washington memoir stuff, although with a few concealed identities) are interesting, of course.
The drawbacks are that such a literate book has flashes of really cheap partisan snipping. When you consider it, what made Reagan (and Noonan's book) successful is their tapping into not just a Republican wellspring of thought, but into an American one. Noonan reads FDR to get the "voice" of the presidency, for example (hard to imagine that happening with W's minions). So it's jarring when in the midst of her book she makes some passive-aggressive, straw man attack on liberals, who of course aren't able to defend themselves. I remember Reagan used to make a speech in the 1980 campaign about how "some people will tell you America's day has passed, that its glory days are behind it, that it can no longer lead in the world today" or words to that effect. Carter did not say that, and no one with a clue ever would. Reagan could have made the same point about American heming and hawing without the straw man method.
So it is with Noonan: every now and then she'll make some comment about how Democrats are ashamed of the lower class, or some aside about how extreme some person is, and of course she can get away with it - it's her book. But it takes away from her appeal as a thoughtful conservative. It's ironic to see her do this and then, for example, absolve Pat Buchanan of any extremism by noting, "wow, he likes Auden!"
Which brings me to the other flaw: as the above review noted, she acts like a schoolgirl towards Reagan. He is SOOO perfect, nice, dreamy, etc. Gimme a break - has she ever heard of Truman, for example? But so much for conservative individualism: she seems content to worship the king to no end, to embarrassing and detrimental effect to her book.
So final verdict: well-done, but with flaws, but definitely worth it.
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Summary: Peggy, will you marry me?
Review: This is an outstanding account of a true believer in the Reagan White House. According to Noonan, Reagan never cared about receiving credit, he just wanted to accomplish his goals. Reagan was the greatest President of this century, and his standing will continue to grow when compared to the other Presidents we've seen over the last forty years.
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