Peggy Noonan worked as a speechwriter for Reagan four months before she met him in person. One of the other speechwriters said he hadn’t met with Reagan in a year, except to wave and say hi. Noonan was so star-struck by the Gipper, she somehow tells the story without embarrassment.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/15/magazine/confessions-of-a-white-house-speechwriter.html?pagewanted=all
