Janis K. (scrapbooklady) reviewed on 7/10/2007 + 472 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

In "When Character Was King" Peggy Noonan wrote her story of a great man and the building of his character as Ronald Reagan lay dying. Now that he's gone, Peggy Noonan is our era's great communicator. Not every word of "When Character Was King" is the utterly necessary word at the absolutely necessary time -- a few of her words don't fit and an occasional fact is flubbed -- but for the most part all other words fit perfectly into the best portrait we have of a good and great man.

Noonan, I believe, is the only biographer of President Reagan who understands the import of a first-term footnote, an episode that most of the world has learned to forget or has learned to diminish. That's the PATCO strike which, as Noonan shows, had world-historical implications. By the force of his focus, President Reagan used PATCO to reassert free-world mastery in our twilight struggle with an Evil Empire that was evil and that was an empire. We are fortunate that we had Reagan at a moment of maximum danger and Noonan to tell his story.
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