Wednesday, September 03, 2008

"Political bullshit" says Scooter's girlfriend [UPDATED]

Peggy Noonan agrees, on an open mic, with Michael that the race for president is "over" but doesn't see it the same way.

[Update: Peggy says she didn't mean the McCain candidacy was "over".]
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5 comments:

Scooter said...

Obligated to reply after my absence: I was deeply disappointed in gf's on mike comments. I'm not sure I buy her rebuttal.

September 8, 2008 at 8:46:00 PM CDT
Stephanie said...

The thing about it that was stunning to me was that earlier that day or the previous day Noonan had written a column enthusiastically supportive of Palin. So to hear that her actual opinion was that picking Palin was "political BS" stunned me. Here's how naive I am: I thought that at least some of the pundits actually believed the things they were saying. But if Noonan's just playing a role, then I'm willing to believe they all are.

September 8, 2008 at 8:55:00 PM CDT
Michael said...

Is it not curious that the leaked material doesn't include the context that would support gf? I give her the benefit of the doubt.

September 9, 2008 at 6:24:00 AM CDT
Stephanie said...

I buy her explanation of the "It's over" comment, but not the "political bullshit" part.

September 9, 2008 at 8:24:00 AM CDT
Michael said...

Mickey Kaus today at Slate:

Psst: Did anyone notice that Peggy Noonan's account of that open mike snippet--that when she said "it's over" she meant the GOP impulse to win by appealing to its base was "over," not that the election was over--was backed up by Daniel Finkelstein, who remembers Noonan making that point on a prior occasion using the same phrase. ... P.S.: Noonan also said she was "pretty certain that is exactly what [open mike mates] Todd and Murphy understood I was referring to"--and Murphy indeed posted a Palin-skeptical Swampland comment suggesting the base-is-not-enough point is exactly what's on his mind:

In a high turnout Presidential year, I am not worried about turning out the base. I'm worried about everybody else we need to win and I fear that among those voters, Sarah Palin will be a dud. ... [snip] In a year where the Democrat generic numbers are 10+ points better than the Republican, I don't like the math of a strategy that just polarized the election along party base lines.

P.P.S.: So if you are a Republican pundit and go on MSNBC not only do you have to worry about your open-mike comments being overheard. You have to worry about pro-Dem MSNBC employees excerpting little bits that weren't overheard and distributing them to embarrass your party (whether or not the excerpt captures what was actually being said)? Even Fox doesn't do that. [Update: Well, there was this.] Does NBC realize that MSNBC has become a freakish joke? ... Guess so! .. .1:26 P.M. link

September 9, 2008 at 8:46:00 AM CDT

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