Peggy Noonan

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Peggy Noonan (born Margaret Ellen Noonan on September 7, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York) is an author of seven books on politics, religion and culture and a weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, and was a Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.

Many of Noonan's writings are informed by a working-class, populist sympathy and Roman Catholic spirituality. Five of her books have been New York Times bestsellers, a number garnering the highest critical praise. On publication of her first book, the political classic What I Saw at the Revolution, the author Wilfred Sheed wrote on the front page of the New York Times Book Review that Noonan's work was "hauntingly...elegiac. She does full justice to the joy of writing....Ms Noonan can evoke a mood like nobody's business...fairly rocks with life." On the front page of the Washington Post Book World, Reid Beddow called her "The poet laureate of resurgent Republicanism...Noonan writes speeches like an angel...hilarious reading." In Vogue Magazine Maureen Dowd's review said, "As Edith Wharton wrote about the foibles of New York Society, Noonan skewers the pompous manners and mores of Washington's power elite with a quirky prose style that shifts free verse, short cinematic takes, and luxuriant description." Of her second book, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the New York Times said, "You read her in thrall to her striking ability to behold great vistas through a pinhole...in language that is always concrete and vital." Her biography of Ronald Reagan, When Character Was King, for which she interviewed the family, colleagues and closest friends of the former president, is considered a classic of its kind, and a reliable resource for those seeking insight into the facts of Reagan's life.

Noonan is a Trustee of the Manhattan Institute. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Miami University, St. John Fisher College, her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Adelphi College, and Saint Francis College. She has twice been nominated for Emmy Awards for her work on network television's first tribute to those who'd fallen on 9/11/01, and for her work on "The West Wing."

Contents 1 Personal 2 Famous speeches 3 Current work 4 Books 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Personal

Noonan married Richard W. Rahn, who was then chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in 1985. They lived in Great Falls, Virginia. Their son Will was born in 1987.^[1]

Noonan and her husband were divorced after five years of marriage. In 1989 she returned with her son to her native New York. In 2004, according to an interview with Crisis Magazine, she lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights with her son, who attended a high school nearby. ^[2] In the Crisis Magazine article, Noonan spoke of exposing her son to the exciting world of politics:

Her son, Will, loves politics and has grown into the sort of young man Noonan can bring to a dinner party at Vice-President Dick Cheney's home "and have a good conversation with the vice president of the United States," Noonan says. "How lucky is that kid to be exposed to that sort of thing — and how lucky am I as a parent to take my son to such a thing."

Noonan currently lives in New York City.^[3]

Noonan has written a number of celebrated columns on the devastation following the attacks of 9/11. Her most famous, including "Welcome Back, Duke" and "God is Back", can be found at http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/archive/ .

[edit] Famous speeches

During 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Reagan, authored his "Boys of Point Du Hoc" speech on the 40th anniversary of D-day. This speech, given in Normandy at the very site of the action, honors the Allied troops that died in the invasion. She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger explosion, drawing upon the poet John Magee's famous words about the astronauts who "slipped the surly bonds of earth ... and touched the face of God." She worked too on a celebrated tribute President Reagan gave to honor John F. Kennedy, at a fundraising event, held at the McLean, Virginia home of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the spring of 1984.

Later, while working for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, Noonan coined the phrase "a kinder, gentler nation" and also popularized "a thousand points of light", two memorable catchphrases used by Bush. Noonan also wrote the speech in which Bush pledged: "Read my lips: no new taxes" during his 1988 presidential nomination acceptance speech in New Orleans. Bush's subsequent reversal of that pledge is often cited as a reason for his defeat in his 1992 re-election campaign.

[edit] Current work

Noonan is now an author, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and a commentator on broadcast and cable television news shows. She remains a Reagan-style conservative, although she often criticizes the GOP leadership.^[4]

In mid-August 2004, Noonan took a brief, unpaid leave from the Wall Street Journal to campaign for George W. Bush's reelection. In the years since, Noonan has become increasingly critical of the administration since Bush's inaugural address in January 2005.^[5]

Before the Reagan years, she worked as daily CBS Radio commentary writer for anchorman Dan Rather at CBS News, whom she once called "the best boss I ever had." From 1975 through 1977 she worked the overnight shift as a newswriter at WEEI Radio in Boston, where she was later Editorial and Public Affairs Director.

She has worked as a contributor on the hit US political drama The West Wing.

Noonan frequently cites the political figures she admires, including Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson.

[edit] Books

• 1990: What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (ISBN 0-8129-6989-8)
• 1994: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (ISBN 1-55850-509-1)
• 1998: Simply Speaking: How to Communicate Your Ideas With Style, Substance, and Clarity (ISBN 0-7881-6775-8)
• 1999: On Speaking Well (ISBN 0-06-098740-5) (A Paperback edition of "Simply Speaking")
• 1999: Character Above All (ISBN 0-684-82709-3) (One Chapter in an anthology)
• 2000: The Case Against Hillary Clinton (ISBN 0-06-039340-8)
• 2001: When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan (ISBN 0-14-200168-6)
• 2003: A Heart, A Cross And A Flag (ISBN 0-7432-5005-2)
• 2005: John Paul The Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father (ISBN 0-670-03748-6)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Peggy Noonan article archive
• Hugh Sidey, "The Presidencey: Of Poets and Word Processors, Time, May 2, 1988.
• Anne Morse, "Meeting Peggy Noonan," Crisis Magazine, September, 2004.
• Article from "Quote, Unquote" on John Magee's poem "High Flight".
• Peggy Noonan in the IMDb.
• Margaret Rahn in Busch/Quayle (sic) Alumni Directory.
• PropertyShark page for 60 East 96th Street, New York, New York.