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Peggy Noonan

 
Quotes By: Peggy Noonan
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"My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage."

"Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH."

"If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else."

"Most people aren't appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn't take the drug money, or the daughter who held her tongue again and again. All this anonymous heroism."

"If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault."

"Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents."

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Wikipedia: Peggy Noonan
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Noonan meeting with President Ronald Reagan in the White House Oval Office, 1988

Peggy Noonan (born Margaret Ellen Noonan on September 7, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American author of seven books on politics, religion, and culture, a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a primary speech writer and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. She is considered a political conservative.

She is a graduate of Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey, and Fairleigh Dickinson University.[1]

Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers. 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 was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on America: A Tribute to Heroes.

Noonan frequently cites[clarification needed] the political figures she admires, including Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Edmund Burke.

Contents

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 was born in 1987.[2]

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 the nearby Saint Ann's School.[3]

Noonan currently lives in New York City.[4]

Famous speeches

In 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Reagan, authored his "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech on the 40th anniversary of D-day. She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger explosion, drawing upon the poet John Magee's famous words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth... and touched the face of God." The latter is ranked as one of the ten best American political speeches of the 20th century according to a list compiled by professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M University and based on the opinions of "137 leading scholars of American public address." The "Pointe du Hoc" speech ranks as the 60th best speech of the century.[5]

She worked too on a tribute 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 this pledge is often cited as a reason for his defeat in his 1992 re-election campaign).

Career

Before the Reagan years, Noonan worked as the 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 American television drama, The West Wing.

In mid-August 2004, Noonan took a brief, unpaid leave from the Wall Street Journal to campaign for George W. Bush's re-election.

Noonan became increasingly critical of the Bush administration after Bush's inaugural address in January 2005.[6][7]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Noonan wrote about Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy in the Wall Street Journal. In one opinion piece, Noonan expressed her view that Palin did not demonstrate "the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office" and Noonan concluded that Palin's candidacy marked a "vulgarization in American Politics" that is "no good... for conservatism... [or] the country."[8]

Noonan is now an author, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and a commentator on news shows. She is a member of the Manhattan Institute's board of trustees, and one of the founding members, along with Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells Lawrence and Joni Evans of wowOwow.com, a new website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip. Noonan and her columns are frequently mocked on the political satire blog Wonkette.

Books

References

  1. ^ About Rutherford High School, Rutherford High School. Accessed July 7, 2007. "Career diplomat and ambassador Thomas H. Pickering and presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan are among those honored as part of this tradition."
  2. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967310,00.html Hugh Sidey, "The Presidencey: Of Poets and Word Processors, Time (magazine), May 2, 1988.
  3. ^ http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2004/morse.htm Anne Morse, "Meeting Peggy Noonan," Crisis Magazine, September, 2004.
  4. ^ http://tobaccodocuments.org/nysa_ti_s3/TI46320030.html?zoom=750&ocr_position=above_foramatted&start_page=41 Margaret Rahn in Busch/Quayle (sic) Alumni Directory.
  5. ^ http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html "American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century by Rank."
  6. ^ http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006184 Peggy Noonan, "Way Too Much God," The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2005.
  7. ^ http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010326 Peggy Noonan, "American Grit: We can't fire the president right now, so we're waiting it out," The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2007.
  8. ^ "Palin's Failin'". Wall Street Journal. October 17, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419210832542317.html. Retrieved 2008-10-18. 

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