Customer Reviews

Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now

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Without a shadow of doubt, Peggy Noonan is the finest writer when it comes to describing politics, social conditions and personal attitudes of Americans.

She is a gem. This book is her eighth and finest yet. In addition to her facile intellect she presents a genuine cry from the heart about the tragedy of America today. After 9/11, Americans and the world united in support. Now, Noonan writes, "If we had a major terrorist attack tomorrow, half the country -- more than half -- would not completely trust the federal government to do what it has to do, would not trust it to tell the truth, would not trust it, period."

It's not surprising. Noonan was a speechwriter for President Reagan whose philosophy was, "Government is the problem." Now she seems utterly amazed that Americans think government is a problem, not a solution.

It leads me to wonder: What if Winston Churchill, after being named Prime Minister in May 1940 and with Panzers closing in on the British army at Dunquerque, had not said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." Instead, citing his predecessors, what if he said government was the problem and advised, "Let's go down to the pub and have a Boddy or two."

True to her Reaganesque roots, Noonan still blames government. She's brilliant at this one-note song of sorrow, which makes her book very timely reading. She could be part of the solution if she'd go beyond her anti-government mood and think about how to make government effective and trustworthy again.

Harry Truman did it, when America faced much wider and far more dangerous challenges. Perhaps she's at her limit as a journalist -- defining problems but trusting others to maturely find solutions.

"The greatest generation" of journalists always had quick and ready solutions; journalists today are stuck with whining about problems but never offering solutions. They seem to fear perhaps being wrong. Noonan is as astute as any at such whining; that alone makes her book one of the best and most relevant for today's America.

Noonan writes, "It's beyond 'The president is overwhelmed.' The entire government is overwhelmed." Nonsense. If the government is truly overwhelmed, then America is finished. The answer is to make it work, not to whine about difficulties. Did Churchill whine? Former Sen. Phil Gramm, a McCain advisor, is absolutely right about America becoming a nation of whiners. It's time to stop whining and start working.

This book is a vital start. Buy it. Read it. Loan it to friends. Discuss it. Praise it. Condmen it. It will launch an intelligent conversation among caring people about the nature of America tomorrow.

Noonan offers a magnificent portrait of America today. However, instead of the feel-good "It's morning in America" complacency, the next president must offer some blood, toil, tears and sweat. It's a challenge Americans always respond to with magnificent courage, determination, effort and patriotism.

Noonan is brilliant. America is even better.

You read Noonan and you stumble on one of her insights, put the book down, and think to yourself "Yeah, that's right. I never quite saw it that way before." Illustration: the presidency has changed because Bush and Clinton personalized it so that it stopped being about the office and started being about them.Bingo. The passage on the messages and calls made by those who were about to die on the 9-11 flights makes you want to cry. Noonan is right: "crisis is a great editor." They said what needed to be said, what mattered, and not one of their words was wasted or mean spirited. She is fair. On Bush and landing the plane on the carrier deck for the Mission Accomplished speech, she smacks their arrogance, saying "they were looking for trouble." On the Dems and Iraq---they looked for a way to oppose it without any political cost."There is always a cost." Her tone is sad yet hopeful. Her Big Idea? Judge Learned Hand said:the spirit of liberty is the spirit that is never sure that it is always right. I'd think she'd embrace that. Give her new one a read.

I have just invested the better part of a Sunday afternoon reading the new Peggy Noonan book, Patriotic Grace. Through the years I have enjoyed her gracious pen taken to topics, many of which I agreed and some which I felt she was far too gracious, only to find myself moderating my strident position. Since 9/11 it is apparent that things changed for Ms. Noonan and this has been reflected in her writing. Indeed, it appeared that everything had changed for all of us as Americans after 9/11. I remember well members of Congress standing on the steps of the Capitol affirming their love and support for America. I remember the flags, I remember the prayers, I remember the extraordinary efforts that ordinary Americans made to reach out to people whose roots extended to the Middle East. I was profoundly moved to see America find its soul when so many souls had perished. Of course there was and will always be a radical element that decides that it was an "inside job". There will always be those among us who represent the darker side of our family. I know it is impossible to win those people over to any sense of a greater good reality.

However, Ms. Noonan's call is for us to do the very thing that it seems it has become impossible to do today, have civil, if somewhat spirited, conversation. As the books unfolds, one cannot help but feel her anxiety, her sense of intuition that hard times are coming. Calling upon that great lion of the Democrat Party that we conservatives have loved to hate through the years, Teddy Kennedy (p.124) when he speaks in a moment of unguarded honesty among family, "I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age."..."Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart." Even the most cynical among us need to consider these words. Regardless what one may think about Sen. Kennedy, these are words of deep importance. "If I am right that we are facing a hard time, and if deep in your heart you believe we're going to face a bad time, why don't all of us think about it a lot?" "Because it is too big." (p. 138)

This is not about some Republican who senses that defeat is around the corner and there will be lynchings enough to go around beginning with Cheney and of course Bush. It is bigger than the small pea-brained intramural sport that politics has become. This is more than following your favorite college team. As Americans we must recognize that our elected representatives are men and women with clay feet and while insider information has the effect of making one seem wiser than citizens, it does not necessarily make anyone smarter or more capable to discern the complexity that we face as a people and as a nation. When we as citizens of this great nation abdicate to our hired representatives all decisions without hearing our voice we will get what we deserve. The beauty of our system of government is that government works for us, not us for it!

"We have been asking a great deal of the mere mortals who lead us. And while we ask too much of them we keep them from doing- we allow them to avoid doing-the primary thing we need them to do well, which is to know what time it is and act accordingly." (p. 135)

Without question Noonan's call for grace will fall on many deaf ears. As I survey the books on my shelf I see other books by theologians and sociologist calling for a renewed civility. If we fail to grasp the importance of this, we will kill ourselves from the inside out. I join Noonan in seeking to "try in a renewed way, each day, and within my abilities, to be fair." (p.40) If a leftist blogger thinks that is evidence of bad faith, I will extend grace and hope that they too will own their culpability in the disruption of civil conversation. This book will likely irritate the hardcore Republican who feel as though they are always the one being asked to moderate their deeply held convictions. Listen to the words, let them speak to your sensibilities. We can disagree and not be disagreeable. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

Read this book.

Peggy Noonan is the writer I'd most like to talk with, to respond to her insights and listen to her straightforward opinions. Since we aren't acquainted, the next best thing is reading her new book. Her writing exudes innate decency, old fashioned virtues and enduring values. She decries the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum, and the degeneration of the level of national discourse. She describes the indignity of going through airline security as a middle aged woman, and although I do not travel by plane (since 9/11!), I am a middle aged woman, and I exist on dignity, so can well understand her silent outrage at what our nation has come to. Patriotic Grace is inspiring, uplifting, but also profoundly pessimistic about the future of our nation. I also deeply feel our country has descended to terrible depths of degradation, we have accustomed ourselves to vulgarity and ugliness, both verbal and visual, in the public sphere. That Noonan is aware of this is to her great credit. I hope many people read this small book and identify with its message.

As readers of her weekly column in the Wall Street Journal already know, Peggy Noonan is perhaps the finest political thinker, analyst and writer of her time. She has a unique ability to capture the look and feel, and the sensibility/insensibility of events, then translate them into understandable context. It is what made her a great speech writer for Ronald Reagan, and, not surprisingly, it is why "Patriotic Grace" is not only a great book, but an important book that hopefully will jump start a new dialogue about America, and what it means to be an American, and what it will take to lead Americans in the 21st Century.

It is not an insignificant note that the book is dedicated to Senators McCain and Obama (among others).

Noonan begins with two powerful metaphors. The first recounts the story of brave, scared GIs, all huddled together in Higgins Boats headed accross the Channel to their unsought, but undenied, rendez-vous with destiny at Omaha Beach. The second is an accounting of a serious (but ultimately false) bomb scare that scattered dignitaries assembled in the White House for President Reagan's funeral. A wheel-chair bound older woman could not descend the stairs until she was quietly lifted up by others and carried to safety.

In both cases everyone knew that they needed to rely on the skills and strength, bravery and humanity of one another for their mere survival. And so, posits Noonan, it is now the same in America and for all Americans. The author urges that we must all learn, and expect, to carry one another - literally and figuratively - in a post 9/11 world that is more surly, more dangerous, and less accommodating of American arrogance and hubris than in the past. This means reducing/eliminating the symbols and distinctions that have increasingly divided us: red state/blue state; liberal/conservative; Democrat/Republican. These are the emblems of the past which do not serve us well in the future,

Noonan spends much time translating the meaning of the Bush years into a series of 14 common sense suggestions, and painful lessons, from which the next President, and coming generations can hopefully learn. They are too numerous to mention in a brief review, but, they clearly include comporting ourselves with a greater degree of grace and accommodation, both internally and internationally, to listen more to one other and to scream less at each other, and to work much harder at being a true beacon that other world communities strive to become.

And, all of this is written in a style as though the conversation were being held between the Author and her Reader. You read it. You understand it. You believe it. You want the new dialogue to begin.

Let's hope that our alleged leaders are listening. The world has changed and bad things have happened to the United States in this Millennium. Noonan predicts that even worse things are not only possible, but likely - which only accelerates the need to reduce and eliminate the noise and the bravado and the partisanship and the hubris, and to figuratively join together in a new, national Higgins boat in which people and politicians serve not with greed and corruption and partisanship, but with heartfelt grace and dignity and respect, to rediscover, to redevelop and to rejoice in real American solutions.

This is a must read!

Peggy Noonan has it right. America is a country that needs to "[t]ake a deep breath and slow down now, and think everything through" because we're not a nation of cartoon heroes: we can't take any and every kind of punishment and still stand unaffected. We can't spend money at home and abroad as if it were of endless supply. We can't ignore our cracking infrastructure, our outmoded electrical grid, our lack of self-sufficiency in energy. We can't ignore the need to institute civil defense plans in case of (god forbid) other post-9/11 terrorist attacks. We can't act as ugly Americans in the world, particularly on the diplomatic and military fronts. In short, we must act now to change the equation at the federal, state, and local levels so that all, people and officials, are "actually serious about the business of the nation." Noonan urges a new focus, a new cooperation, a new "patriotic grace" to get us through the likely extreme challenges ahead.

Since her PATRIOTIC GRACE was published before the current economic crisis, Noonan, when she worries about possible dangers to our democracy and way of life, mainly cites further terrorist acts on American soil. She is being realistic; we all know security can never be 100% unassailable. However, now, due to many bad decisions in both the private and public sectors, our country is also in danger of falling into a prolonged and grave economic depression. And, rushing to throw money at one problem (the bank credit freeze), our leaders could end up deepening the meltdown across the board. Cool, wise heads are needed on this front also.

PATRIOTIC GRACE both identifies many of the endemic predicaments we have gotten snared in as a nation and presents some common sense solutions. As she always has in her speeches and columns, Noonan conveys an easily crafted, frank, but not overheated message which she sprinkles with illustrative stories about "common" men and women who are generous and brave Americans.

Noonan admits she has been feeling for a while now that somehow things are just out of control here, that the government is too big, and that the people are also expecting too much from leaders. She notes that other Americans seem to share her unease, her fear that things could just fall apart. I know just what she means. So, it is good and timely that she wrote this small book before the elections this year. I hope many will read her wise words, realize she is right, and act accordingly, both in the ballot box and beyond. America definitely needs PATRIOTIC GRACE.

I think Peggy Noonan is First Violin in the Opinion Orchestra.

This book is little. You will only spend a few hours reading it, the urgency of the 2008 election sends Peggy straight to the point.

The questions are enormous. What are we putting on our page of history before it turns? How prepared are we to defend ourselves, really? Despite such gravity, I felt my spirits lift when I closed the cover.

If you feel spattered by the toxic splash of election coverage, buy this book. Refresh yourself, then press it into the hands of kindred minds.

I would have gone with a weak four if the book had more substance to it, but ultimately this is a "quickie" book with good intentions and elegant turns of phrase, and I certainly recommend that it be bought and read.

I am estranged moderate Republican utterly livid over the manner in which the "bi-partisan" spoils system allowed Bush-Cheney to destroy America while both Congress and the White House subverted the Constitution.

Hence, when Noonon calls for "bi-partisan" collaboration in the middle of the book, I must immediately put her in the same class as lawyers for organized crime leaders. Democracy in America has been destroyed. The League of Women Voters was pushed out of the debate business so that the Republican-Democratic debate commission could exclude Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinny, Gloria La Riva, and the ever so arrogant and hence irrelevant Bob Barr. We are NOT one nation, we are NOT one people, and there is nothing wrong with America that Electoral Reform will not fix. A third of the country's voters have been illegally gerrymandered out of their vote, and another third have been disincentivized by the idiocy of our campaigns.

Here Noonan earns a solid three and moves almost to a weak four when she castigates both Obama and McCain for failing to discuss any serious issues, and especially her pet rock, the electrical grid. While she is right on both counts, this is as substantive as the book gets, everything else is pabulum about bi-partisan singing kumbawah while in fact bi-partisanship is treason--Congress is broken in every possible way at the same time that the Executive is organized for incoherenceand the ONLY thing that will fix (and preserve) the United STATES of America is Electoral Reform--I am providing the text in easy to read format in the first comment below, most from Ralph Nader as refined by me.

To end on a positive note, this book is a cross between Ralph Nader's The Seventeen Traditions and Imagine: What America Could be in the 21st century while completely avoiding the reality depicted in Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy or Senator Tom Coburn's Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders.

NOTE for my regular readers: Amazon has totally hosed up the review system. Fans that come in once a week to catch up and vote on each review are being treated as "campaign voters" and their votes are automatically deleted once they pass some threshhold, perhaps three votes for the same reviewer on the same day. You have to complain. They are also incentivizing negative reviews, and this has encouraged stalkers (whose votes get deleted) but it also peverts the system in that most of my reviews which have three times the positive votes of any other reviewer, now fall below the line because I also have a small segment of negative reviews that are oriented mostly on the premises of the book I am reviewing, not my review (most of which go right up to 1000 words and include 10 links to other books). If you select me as an "Interesting Person" at my profile, this will unbury my reviews when you as an individual visit--otherwise Amazon has sentence me to intellectual death....

Other books on the theme of this book that are better:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Doing Democracy
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

The free book online (and at Amazon) with everything this books does not address:
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)

Peggy proves that books on politics and our civic duty to pay attention to our world do not have to be 500 pages long to be get the message across. Peggy Noonan is one of our nation's best wordsmiths, especially when it comes to cutting to the quick of our strident attitudes, on the left or right. As she says, one of these days, we'll each be helping each other down the stairs.

Good thing too. I was able to scan its contents so much quicker. I didn't dislike the book, but simply tired of the usage of "I" early in the reading - longest essay ever! When Noonan recounted stories, interviews and used quotes to validate her points, I was engaged and engrossed. When she rambled, I scanned. However, she was on target with her observations and diagnoses - just wish she'd had the solutions. But, let's do be nicer and kinder; oh. and DEFINITELY get the Shop and Home Ec classes back in our schools! It's a start.