by Peggy Noonan
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Product Description
As a special assistant to the president, Peggy Noonan worked with Ronald Reagan, and with Vice President George H. W. Bush, on some of their most famous and memorable speeches. In her thoroughly engaging and critically acclaimed memoir, Noonan shows us the world behind the words. Her sharp and vivid portraits of the Reagans, Bush, and a host of Washington’s movers and shakers are rendered in inimitable, witty prose. And her priceless account of what it was like to be a speechwriter among bureaucrats, and a woman in the last bastion of male power, makes this a Washington memoir that breaks the mold—as spirited, sensitive, and thoughtful as Peggy Noonan herself.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Best of the Best, 2008-11-01
Peggy Noonan is the Ted Williams of Presidental speechwriting. Talented, word perfect in tone and strongly opinionated, she overcame the limitations of those guarding President Reagan to write two of the five greatest presidental speeches of the 20th century. WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION is her remembrance of the experience and how much she was a true believer of Reagan. Her prose for the ear is unmatched, a great writer, a great book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
She's a goddess!, 2008-06-24
She's witty, intelligent, well-read, has down-home common sense, loves the Gipper. What's not to like? She tells great stories of a unique historic moment. She does not brag, has no axe to grind. Many beautiful sentences. One of America's great writers and thinkers. Don't miss her editorial essays in the Wall St. Journal on Saturdays. (Would someone please collect all of them, every word, into a book? Ala David Sedaris? PS - Reading DS leaves me amused, but feeling slightly creepier than I was before. PN leaves you sure that the world can and will be a better place.)
I listened to the Audible recording (from audible,com via [...]), which I believe is her reading her own book. It adds a lot to have her read it. But ... audible.com does not bother to identify the reader. It sounds like Audible recorded their version from a $19 cassette recorder, using a $[...] microphone. You have to turn it up all the way and it's still muffled. It's criminal.
I finished the book in a day, every minute a pleasure. Thanks, so much, Peggy Noonan.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 The girl behind Reagans' words, 2008-01-07
Peggy Noonan, the girl behind Reagans' words. She is a former broadcast news writer for Dan Rather. She then brought a new voice into the male dominated world of the White House speachwriter. She brings a smile to the reader with her wonderful analogies and her beautiful, caressing, witty, and poetic words. Her knack for remembering the details is uncanny. At times I find her hard to follow----there is a lot going on in that fast paced mind. And she often goes off into a "daydream". This book brings us into the discussions and interactions inside the White House. She begins with her childhood (a world of innocence), then moves to her break from liberalism to conservatism (world of imperialist thought); and this is what she says:
"What had seemed in my youth the party of rich dullards became, almost in spite of itself, the party of the people----it is about me, and what led me to be the first of my family to become that dread thing, a Republican. It is about CBS, where I worked, about the media in general and their dance with politics, a woman in politics, and visitor for five years to its capital............ it is about that too. Most of all, I suppose, it's about Reagan, the man at the center of the big turn, and what his presidency meant, and what I saw at the revolution." And this to some it up: "I just start at the beginning and end at the end. There are times when I express myself in a manner that might fairly be called idiosyncratic. Sometimes I experimented with writing speeches in free verse, which may five you an idea of what you're occasionally in for."
Noonan gives us examples of crucial speeches, the contributors, and the steps that go into putting them together. She expresses her aggravation of the editing process and the words that went into the recycle bin. She is uniquely intuitive and observant of her contemporaries
Noonan, with her heartfelt telling, brings us into the company of this very special, humble, and unassuming man, Reagan. (I'm happy to know him a little better.) Reagan was truly a blessing. His sense of humor was refreshing. Noonan will tell us she saw a lonely man, and through all this, she says, she still didn't know him. The last conversation she had with him, he told her about a reoccurring dream he had about living in a big house----it was clear, "a house that was available at a price I could afford". She concludes with the final years in the Reagan administration and her stint with Bush. Yes, Reagan had something to do with the fall of Communism.
Wish you well
Scott
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
What a writer! VERY good read., 2007-09-07
Peggy Noonan is almost Shakespearean in her command and use of the English language. Her words flow like a soft brook on quiet Sunday morning.
My favorite part was where she was talking about the experience of going to work in Washington, DC. The three steps are:
1. Awe of those in power.
2. Thinking "Man, I'm as smart as these people."
and finally
3. My God, WE are in charge?
Priceless!
Well done and a great read.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Insight from a truly unique perspective, 2007-03-12
Peggy Noonan is a gifted writer with a great sense of humor, and she is certainly an exceptional student of human nature. In this book, she takes a young English major's talents into the Reagan White House and gives us, the reader, a unique picture of what it was like for her to work there writing speeches for the man whom she considers to be the greatest president of her lifetime. At the same time, she paints vivid and often humorous portraits of many of those with whom she worked and interacted, as well as of those with whom she often clashed over the words she chose.
The problem that Ms. Noonan, and other speech writers, faced was that although they were not high ranking government bureaucrats or administration "decision makers," the words they wrote were the words which would be spoken by the President of the United States and, as such, her words would be taken by the American people and by leaders around the world as representing the views and positions of the United States of America.
The National Security Council (NSC) members, the Defense Department, the State Department, and others were, therefore, concerned that what was said actually represented their understandings of America's stances and positions on the various issues. They didn't want any room left for misinterpretation or misunderstanding, yet they were terrible writers. This, of course, led to many contentious arguments with and among the various reviewers before the comments of perhaps forty or fifty reviewers could somehow be reconciled or discarded and a speech could go forward to the president's desk for his final approval. Peggy Noonan tells this story in an often surprising and humorous, yet insightful, way making this an interesting and fun book to read.
Two of the buzz words often used by managers these days to prod their employees are "delight" and "surprise" as in "delight and surprise your customers." When I began writing this appraisal, that phrase kept coming to mind. Clearly, Peggy Noonan has succeeded in surprising me and her book obviously delighted me.
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