By: Greg Mitchell Peggy Noonan had been defending the John McCain choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate for days, most recently just this morning in a widely-read Wall Street Journal online piece from the GOP convention. Palin was "powerful," she wrote, her story was strong, she might even be "transformative."
But the savvy media veteran, and former Reagan speechwriter, then forgot the first rule of live TV -- beware of the live mike.
After finishing up an interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd today, as the scene was about to shift and guests were off camera, Noonan and former top GOP strategist Mike Murphy were caught still chatting with Todd on their microphones. "It's over," Noonan said, referring to the Republicans' chances. And, concerning Palin: "The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives.... Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it."
Murphy added: "You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."
A video was soon posted by a leading liberal blog at YouTube carrying the evidence -- see it at our new blog, The E&P Pub:
The E&P Pub.
UPDATE: Noonan has now responded with a topper on her original column (see link below). The defense concludes with: "But, bottom line, I am certainly sorry I blurted my barnyard epithet, I am certainly sorry that someone abused my meaning in the use of the words, 'It's over', and I'm sorry I didn't have the Kay Bailey Hutchison thought before this morning, because I could have written of it. There."
Here is the transcript of the audio portion of the video -- courtesy of talkingpointsmemo.com -- followed by part of what Noonan wrote just this morning.
*
Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)
Peggy Noonan: Yeah.
Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --
PN: It's over.
MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.
PN: Saw Kay this morning.
CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --
MM: They're all bummed out.
CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --
CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.
MM: I totally agree.
PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.
MM: You know what' sreally the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.
CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.
MM: Yeah.
*
Noonan at: http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
"Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.
'She could become a transformative political presence.
"So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick....
"I'll tell you how powerful Mrs. Palin already is: she reignited the culture wars just by showing up. She scrambled the battle lines, too. The crustiest old Republican men are shouting "Sexism!" when she's slammed. Pro-woman Democrats are saying she must be a bad mother to be all ambitious with kids in the house....
"I'm bumping into a lot of critics who do not buy the legitimacy of small town mayorship (Palin had two terms in Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000 or so) and executive as opposed to legislative experience. But executives, even of small towns, run something. There are 262 cities in this country with a population of 100,000 or more. But there are close to a hundred thousand small towns with ten thousand people or less. 'You do the math,' the conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway told me. 'We are a nation of Wasillas, not Chicagos.'"
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