Peggy Noonan on Ronald Reagan (Character Above All, Vol. 6)

Rating:
Summary: Basically a puff piece as were the others in this series.
Review: Peggy Noonan is one of President Reagan's most well known & ardent admirers. Fine story telling. Like the one about the President, the old lady, the fund raiser & screwed up computers. Quite touching. True? Anyway if you believe the stuff on this tape I have bridge for you in Brooklyn .

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring! A breath of fresh-air in today's moral climate.
Review: Peggy Noonan, whose clear, articulate voice could bring life to the dullest text, here paints a picture of Ronald Reagan as vivid and colorful as any portrait ever could. Her insights into the types of people who become president (the type who wants to BE big, and the type who wants to do BIG THINGS) are indispensible to anyone seeking a leadership position, from the home, to the world stage. Here, Reagan is seen not as the "affable dunce" of the pundits and intellectuals, but rather as the determined and mysteriously detached mastermind of the fall of communism, and the restoration of American pride and economy. Using Reagan's example of integrity, Noonan shows us that what counts in a president-or any person-is truly Character Above All.

Rating:
Summary: Partisan cheerleading: inconsistent with the series
Review: Working my way through the Character Above All series has been a pleasant and often enlightening experience. However that was not the case with the lecture on Ronald Reagan. Peggy Noonan, who worked with the president, made no attempt to sound objective. For most of her talk Ms. Noonan alternates between defensiveness and partisan pining for her glory days gone by. The rest of the series is quite excellent and features some of today's towering figures of presidential biography. Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about FDR. David McCollough tells stories from his award winning book on Truman. Robert Dalleck rescues LBJ from being totally obscured by Vietnam. Even George Bush gets a fair hearing from Michael Beschloss. But Ronald Reagan gets a cheerleader. Ms. Noonan's partisanship seems grossly out of place among these historians. Reagan deserved better.