A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag: America Today

New York native Peggy Noonan compiles a collection of 50 lightly edited compassionate and heartfelt writings from 9/11/01 through 9/11/02 that center around the 9/11 attack on America. She calls the book a heart, a cross, and a flag "because those were the things that rose from the rubble" Humorous and witty, and she has a knack for reading a persons' character.

That one day in September everything changed; our lives would never be the same. For one brief moment we as a Nation would come together. In these short letters Noonan praises the U.S. and the wonderful people of New York. She salutes the men who protect us----the heroes. She gives us her thoughts on George Bush and the previous Presidents, along with terrorism, national security, and where the future lies.

At times it is hard to figure out if she is serious in her views. I will chalk that up to a gender gap. But where she is serious, is her devout Catholicism, and she does not hide it here. This is where she has been led astray.

Wish you well
Scott

First, the surface: On the cover of What I Saw at the Revolution, revolutionist Peggy Noonan's memoir of her two or three years as a writer for Reagan, she looked like Mabel or Madge, one of the frazzed but bravely smiling babes who sling hash or bring cuppas at Denny's on the night shift, one of the working-class heroes that Barbara Ehrenreich slummed with in Nickel & Dimed. By the time she got to her excellent bio of President Reagan and to this book about the year of 9/11 & dangerous living, Ms. Noonan had a makeover.

She says or implies in A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag that everybody in America had a makeover on the day the towers fell. On 9/10 we were somebody; by the morning of 9/12 we were somebody else. Gales of destruction buried our surface lives, casual joys, & previous conditions of certitude. Squalls of Pompeii ash in midtown Manhattan baptized stricken survivors & watchers. In an instant on a brilliant morning we were born again into a deeper world where centers do not hold.

This morning, 4 1/2 years later, we heard that Dick shoots Quayle & Dubya shoots drugs before going to the deeper news about Oprah & J-Lo. 4 1/2 years after war came to us & we went to war, we're mired in a quagmire of 9/10 superficial surfaces. Now, as then, we are living on borrowed time in houses of cards with foundations of sand.

Impelled by deep faith, Ms. Noonan expected that 9/11's agony would bring reappraisal & renewal. She believed reasonably that our clueless multitudes would at last get a clue, if not about ultimate absolutes, then about gas bombs, germ bombs, and dirty nukes on barges in the East River. She believed by 9/20/01 that the president we almost elected president was becoming a great president leading our nation through fire and leading a mature, competent, capable administration. (The news today, oh boy: Vice President Fudd shoots crony, doesn't apologize.)

A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag is, alas, the dead past. It's what might have been. It's where we should have gone (to our knees, without birdshot) but didn't. It's where Ms. Noonan thought we were being led after 9/11 awakened us from our Clinton-Flynt torpor and before -- as Noonan wrote last month --the wheels came off the tram & the tram went off the rails. 4 1/2 years ago she saw hope rising from the ash. Now she sees trouble & dark nights of the soul.

Then as now she uses langauge well. Walking the Brooklyn Bridge and talking about plots to blow the Brooklyn Bridge, she uses simple & supple words to build bridges of meaning & understanding. Occasionally, though, her words blow up & the bridge falls down. This if from page 190, hardcover edition: "Why does Mr. Bush's seeming not to need the presidency contribute to his popularity? Why would it be, in fact, a central reason for his high poll numbers? Because when you know they don't need it, you know they won't do anything to keep it." Parse those words (but overlook the historical oddity that Mr. Bush, once upon a time, was popular), deconstruct them, break them down, and observe that "won't do anything" breaks down in ways the author surely didn't intend. Then notice on page 192, in an essay published one week later, that Noonan writes this: "The congressional elections could produce a Democratic House and a more heavily Democratic Senate. Mr. Bush will do almost anything to keep that from happening ..." Here she's writing about the enactment of tariffs (payoffs) for Pennsylvania & of a pork-larded farm bill for cultivators of corporate welfare. The point I'm making is that plain speaking can be as messy as politics, and that Mr. Bush, even when popular, had embarked on a vote-buying binge with money that Mr. Reagan used to say belonged to us.

(In When Character Was King, Ms. Noonan's biography of President Reagan, there are several places where her plain, simple, supple words come unhinged and where little dissonances -- about snakes or makeup, for example -- knock bricks out of the wall or the bridge of understanding.)

Having been a Peggy Noonan fan for some time, I was excited to read her collection of essays in the aftermath of 9/11. I was not dissapointed in the least.

Ms. Noonan offers readers her particularly personal and charming perspective on everything from firefighter admiration, to anger, to faith, to the politics of terrorism. In doing so she reminds us why she should be considered among the best essayists of our generation.

In the interest of fairness, there were times when I wished the book was more cohesive. The lack of cohesion is a natural consequence of these writings being stand-alone essays. Still, at times this distracted from her otherwise brilliant writing.

When A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag shines (as it so often does), it is a therpautic and prosaic look at our country's most challenging moment. An excellent choice for like-minded conservatives as well as reasonable patriots of the left.

This book was given to me by a very good friend of mine, MaryAnn. On 9/11/01 we sat next to each other in work in New Jersey. We watched and listened in horror as the events of 9/11/01 unfolded and realized from that moment on the world as we know it will never be the same. The following year, we actually picked that specific day to fly on a business trip, 9/11/02, to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11 and to show the terrorists we are not afraid of them. Ms. Noonan actually discusses how people are afraid to fly today in the last chapter. For some people this book will not be politically correct, so be aware of this. Ms. Noonan can not heap enough praise on the firefighters who responded on 9/11 (MaryAnn's brother was one of the brave firefighters who responded on 9/11, a real hero). I enjoyed and re-read over several times the chapters that referred to the 9/11 events. I agree with Ms. Noonan that we are in a war with terrorists, even though there may not be people who realize this. I enjoyed how other subjects were interwoven into the book, the Pope, how life went on after 9/11. Ms. Noonan described how she walked across the Brooklyn Bridge the morning of 9/11/02. Her descriptions and how she captures her feelings are written beautifully, each of us should have tried to capture our own moments. I know some people picking up the book may not want to read about President Bush or the Pope but the descriptions on the weather, how people continued to live their lives after 9/11 were great. If anyone feels as though their civil rights are being violated, just read Chapter 18, "Everybody's Been Shot", even if you are in a bookstore just read it. I've updated this review on 11/30 after I saw on TV people feel as though their rights are violated when they are searched boarding a plane, wake up people remember 9/11 and days afterwards, the shoe bomber, Everyone's been shot, read this section. If nothing else read the poems on pages 23 and 24 (they were tagged for me, thank you) and the poem on page 79, Two Thousand One, Nine Eleven (read these several times). Ms. Noonan describes Brooklyn Heights and beauty (I went to St. Francis College in the Heights). The past two years MaryAnn, other co-workers and myself have gone to Brooklyn Heights to view the Blue Light tribute to 9/11/01. Everyone should see this from Brooklyn Heights and everyone should read this book. Thanks for writing the book Ms. Noonan. This is an awesome gift.

Peggy Noonan is a biased commentator and frankly her views are outdated