Broadly speaking there are two schools of thought about the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
On the one hand some see Reagan as the personification of all that was wrong with the 1980s, an era characterized by that line from a movie: “Greed is good.”
But then there are those who revere our 40th president as not just a great president but as a rare and exceptional leader of great principle and virtue.
Into that latter category falls Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s top speechwriter, who crafted some of Ronald Reagan[‘s most memorable orations.
In 2001, a dozen years after he left office, Reagan was the subject of an admiring book by Peggy Noonan called When Character Was King. That’s when she and I had one of our many conversations.
So here now, from 2001, Peggy Noonan.
Peggy Noonan Is 74 now. She writes a column for the Wall Street Journal.