Peggy Noonan

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Peggy Noonan
Political commentator
  • political speechwriter
    • Political partyRepublican

    Margaret Ellen Noonan (born September 7, 1950), known as Peggy Noonan, is a weekly

    bestsellers
    .

    Noonan was nominated for an

    Emmy Award for her work on America: A Tribute to Heroes
    .

    Early life and early career

    Noonan was born on September 7, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York,[1][2] the daughter of a merchant seaman. She is of Irish descent.[3] Noonan is a graduate of Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey, and Fairleigh Dickinson University.[4]

    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.

    In 1978 and 1979 she was an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.[5]

    Speechwriting

    Noonan in 1986
    Noonan meeting with President Ronald Reagan in 1988

    In 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Ronald 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 words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth ... and touched the face of God." The latter is ranked as the eighth best American political speech of the 20th century, according to a list compiled by professors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Texas A&M University. The "Pointe du Hoc" speech ranks as the 58th best speech of the century, according to the website American Rhetoric.[6]

    She also worked on a tribute Reagan gave to honor President

    Edward M. Kennedy
    in the spring of 1984.

    Later, while working for then Vice President

    1992 re-election campaign
    .

    In 1995, Noonan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris.[7]

    Later career

    Noonan worked as a consultant on the American television drama The West Wing.

    In 2003, Noonan was a supporter of the US invasion of Iraq.[8]

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

    During the

    conservatives.[10]

    In July 2022, in a column about the rise of remote work and empty office buildings, she wrote, "I don’t want America to look like an Edward Hopper painting. He was the great artist of American loneliness—empty streets, tables for one, everyone at the bar drinking alone. We weren’t meant to be a Hopper painting. We were meant to be and work together."[11]

    Noonan is an author, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and a commentator on several news shows, including CNN, where she distanced herself from more conservative Republicans and Donald Trump's presidency. She was one of the founding members of wowOwow.com, along with Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells Lawrence, and Joni Evans.

    In 2017, Noonan won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, for "rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns."[12]

    Personal life

    In 1985, Noonan married

    US Chamber of Commerce. Their son Will was born in 1987.[13]

    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

    Brooklyn Heights with her son, who attended the nearby Saint Ann's School.[14]

    Noonan lives in New York City.[15] She is a practicing Roman Catholic[16] and attends St. Thomas More Church on Manhattan's Upper East Side.[17]

    Criticism

    While Noonan's speechwriting has been praised, her books and Wall Street Journal columns have been the source of criticism and mockery. Critics have singled out her reliance on personal anecdotes to make broad assertions about current events and changes in American politics and society.[18]

    During Hurricane Katrina, she called for looters in New Orleans to be shot.[19] Henry Giroux called it a "barely coded rationale to shoot low-income Black people."[19]

    Nate Silver wrote asking Noonan to present evidence concerning her charge that the IRS was auditing taxpayers for political reasons.[20]

    In a March 2013 column, she used her experience staying at a short-staffed airport hotel to demonstrate the

    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which Noonan had previously criticized in November 2010.[21][22]
    In August 2019, Noonan was mocked for writing a column on
    Hispanic Americans which centered on a conversation she had with a Dominican friend who worked at the deli counter at her grocery store.[23][24][25][26][27] In June 2019, Noonan wrote a column about the loyalty of Trump's supporters that was based on conversations she had with her sister and her uncle.[28]

    Recurring themes in Noonan's books and columns include the decline of civility, social graces, religiosity, patriotism, bipartisanship and statesmanship in contemporary American politics and society, as well as enduring praise for past conservative political figures such as Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. As a result, her writing is criticized for being overly nostalgic.[29]

    In June 2019, after Noonan called on congressional Democrats to censure President Trump in the wake of the

    2021 United States Capitol attack.[32]

    Books

    External videos
    video icon Booknotes interview with Noonan on What I Saw at the Revolution, February 18, 1990, C-SPAN
    video icon Presentation by Noonan on Simply Speaking, February 19, 1998, C-SPAN
    video icon Presentation by Noonan on The Case Against Hillary Clinton, April 3, 2000, C-SPAN
    video icon Washington Journal interview with Noonan on Patriotic Grace, October 6, 2008, C-SPAN
    video icon Presentation by Noonan on The Time of Our Lives, November 25, 2015, C-SPAN
    video icon Interview with Noonan on The Time of Our Lives, November 21, 2015, C-SPAN

    References

    1. ISBN 978-0-493-87308-4
      .
    2. ISBN 978-0-8129-6989-4
      .
    3. ^ "Laura Bush Fascinates Ex-speechwriter".
    4. ^ About Rutherford High School Archived October 20, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, 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."
    5. ^ "Peggy Noonan". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved September 26, 2011.
    6. ^ Michael E. Eidenmuller (February 13, 2009). "Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century by Rank". American Rhetoric. Retrieved September 26, 2011.
    7. American Academy of Achievement
      .
    8. ^ Boehlert, Eric (June 29, 2010). "Peggy Noonan's shameless attempt to rewrite (her own) history". Media Matters for America. Retrieved December 14, 2023.
    9. ^ Noonan, Peggy (October 17, 2008). "Palin's Failin'". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
    10. ^ Blankley, Tony (October 22, 2008). "The Birth of the Me-Too Conservative". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved January 10, 2010.
    11. ^ Noonan, Peggy (July 22, 2022). "The Lonely Office Is Bad for America". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 23, 2022.
    12. ^ "2017 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists", April 10, 2017.
    13. ^ Hugh Sidey, "The Presidency: Of Poets and Word Processors", Time, May 2, 1988.
    14. ^ Anne Morse, "Meeting Peggy Noonan," Crisis Magazine, September, 2004.
    15. ^ "Astuces pour en finir avec le tabac !". tobaccodocuments.org. Archived from the original on January 13, 2009.
    16. ^ Noonan, Peggy (December 26, 2014). "Cardinal, Please Spare This Church". Wall Street Journal.
    17. ^ Today, Rick Hampson USA (March 3, 2015). "NYC Churches Hit The Market For Millions". The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
    18. doi:10.4000/erea.146
      .
    19. ^
      OCLC 958105523
      .
    20. ^ Silver, Nate (May 17, 2013). "New Audit Allegations Show Flawed Statistical Thinking". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    21. ^ Noonan, Peggy. "The Anti-Confidence Man". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    22. ^ Amira, Dan. "Peggy Noonan Wishes Obama Had Done Some Kind of Stimulus-y Thing for Jobs". New York Magazine. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    23. ^ Noonan, Peggy. "America Is So in Play". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    24. ^ Reyes, Paul A. (September 4, 2015). "Noonan's new amigo". The Hill. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    25. ^ O'Connor, Lydia (August 28, 2015). "WSJ Columnist Says She Has Proof Latino Voters Actually Like Donald Trump". HuffPost. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    26. ^ Pareene, Alex (December 17, 2013). "Hack List No. 8: Peggy Noonan". Salon. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    27. ^ Benen, Steve. "The reliability of Peggy Noonan's friend". MSNBC. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    28. ^ Noonan, Peggy. "My Sister, My Uncle and Trump". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    29. ^ Multiple sources:
    30. ^ @realDonaldTrump (June 2, 2019). "Peggy Noonan, the simplistic writer for Trump Haters all, is stuck in the past glory of Reagan and has no idea what is happening with the Radical Left Democrats, or how vicious and desperate they are. Mueller had to correct his ridiculous statement, Peggy never understood it!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
    31. ^ Halaschak, Zachary (June 2, 2019). "Trump blasts Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan as a 'simplistic writer for Trump Haters'". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
    32. ^ Kilander, Gustaf (June 27, 2022). "Trump lashes out over rumours Republicans are ditching him over Jan 6". The Independent. Retrieved June 28, 2022.

    External links

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