Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Noonanis an American author of several books on politics, religion, and culture, and a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal. She was a primary speech writer and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and has maintained a conservative leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan Administration...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth7 September 1950
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The most moving thing in a speech is always the logic. It is never flowery and flourishes. It is not sentimental exhortation, it is never the faux poetry we're all subjected to these days.
We don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.
Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.
I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.
Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.
Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the "ask not what you can do..." speech, he would answer 'ask not.'
A great speech is literature.
could even shove Alberto Gonzales down their throats.
There is nothing wrong with being a declared liberal or conservative and conducting a sympathetic interview with a political figure who shares your views.
The president - every president - works for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be.
Presidents have a right to certain prerogatives, including the expectation of a certain deference. He's the president; this is history. But we seem to have come a long way since Ronald Reagan was regularly barked at by Sam Donaldson, almost literally, and the president shrugged it off.
All great political families have myths: stories they tell themselves about how history happened.
Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to 'Demon Pass.'
You don't have to be old in America to say of a world you lived in: That world is gone.