Footnotes to myself

When Character was King, Peggy Noonan

For a while now I’ve kept extensive reading notes. A few of the quotes, ideas, and observations are thrown into what I write, but a lot never finds a place.

This series is my attempt to make use of that surplus. Not quite a book review, but not quite a summary either; something a little more like marginalia. Here are the bits I underlined, and here’s why I thought they were worth underlining. Some of it will be thematic, some of it fragmentary, all of it deliberately loose. Enjoy.

When Character was King; A Story of Ronald Reagan, by Peggy Noonan

I read this a while back, and realised I had made extensive notes on it that would make it perfect for this series, so decided to dust it off (and free up precious space). I had forgotten how much of a hagiography it was; put me in mind of Nadine Dorries writing about Boris. Whilst it was an interesting read - I remember selecting it because Noonan was his speechwriter, so I expected some interesting insights into his rhetorical style (and got them), but I didn’t feel it offered an unbiased enough insight into the man or the times. For the former, I would recommend Reagan’s own An American Life, and for the latter I would recommend Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland,

By 1950 his political transformation was in full swing. He still believed in the power of government—and the responsibility of gov-ernment—to help people. He held to his father's convictions about helping the working man. But he was also seeing that the government, which had grown and taken new powers to itself to fight and win the war, was continuing to grow. Now it seemed to be promising what Reagan called "womb-to-tomb utopian benevolence." His own marginal tax rate was at 94 percent. He went to England and concluded that its now entrenched welfare state was sapping the will of a great country.

Are NHS’ Actually Existing International Reputation.