One Year Ago: When Peggy Noonan Hailed Palin in Print, Then Got Caught Trashing Her on "Open-Mic"

Talk about flip flops! It was exactly one year ago today that Peggy Noonan suffered her infamous "open-mic" disaster at MSNBC during coverage of the GOP convention, in which Noonan, chatting with Mike Murphy and Chuck Todd, referred to the "bullshit" narrative around Sarah Palin after she was picked as Veep candidate.

When Todd asked her if this was the most qualified woman the Republicans could nominate, Noonan responded, "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 that's not what they're good at, they blow it."

She also said "it's over," seemingly referring to John McCain's chances but, as she later tried to explain, she only meant that the days of the party dictating to the base were gone.

That was all bad enough, as I note in my book Why Obama Won but especially in contrast to what she had just written in her column at the Wall Street Journal:

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.

And more:

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."

Greg Mitchell's latest book, his ninth, is "Why Obama Won." He is the editor of Editor & Publisher magazine.

Comments

[Opus007]

It just shows you that the GOP are always hypocrites. They are lucky they can scrounge up 21% for their moronic base. The base is a medley of racists, bigots, homophobes and people that lay awake at night wondering if the government is going to stop by to steal their weapons.

Peggy Noonan is not much better than Monica Crowley. Pimping my morals for the GOP.....

[coolchange]

Hey, Greg!

Here's another pundit you might remember who got it wrong as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/when-joe-scarborough-pred_b_105503.html

[Luv2Purple]

Anyone who ever said that Palin was qualified has no credibility w/ America. We had never seen in our lifetimes (I'm 55) a candidate so POORLY PREPARED for the national stage. She couldn't answer the most basic questions, let alone ones of substance. She's good at telling a story, but horrible on governing. She LIES all the time. She QUIT her elected position...what about commitment, perseverance?...you know values that America was built on! Alaska LAW states that a public servant CANNOT sign or take money from another employment position...as it is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST with their existing position w/ the state of Alaska (you know how much sarah told us she loves her state!). So Sarah ditched the state,,,,,threw them overboard...and RAN FOR THE MONEY. Levi's story has that truth to it....Palin knew she could not take the money legally or ethically...so she QUIT. What aloser and poor example to the youth of the country!

[mapmaker515]

Peggy Noonan is about as relevant as that rotting corpse she used to write for.The right really scrapes the barrel looking for pundits.

[janejoad]

I have a hard time listening to Peggy Noonan at all. She spends so much time playing with her hair while she speaks that I am too distracted by the goofy things she does to it to actually listen.

[arvay]

Yes, her ultra-pretentious way of speaking fits her right wing politics perfectly.

[LMPE]

What? Reagan's speechwriter had something bad to say about SP?

(in the manner of Jack Benny): Well...

[Zen0469]

This article simply lays out who Peggy really is and whom she represents. A propagandist for the extreme right wing. No more, no less. It should come as no surprise to anyone as to what she really thought of Palin.

[laocoon]

remember after the vp debate she said SP had 'KILLED' I think at the next presidential debates a candidate should do a Harpo Marx and not speak at all just pull sight gags on the other candidate.

[Freesia2]

Well right off the bat I confess that it was one of my favorite moments in the election. I have a box where I've got buttons and stickers and odds and ends to remember this historic election and I must remember to put something about this in there.

But it ruined my opinion of Peggy forever. Not because I didn't agree with her, but because I did and then she backpeddled. I'm not a conservative, but I do think she's a good writer, good with finding the right word and turn of phrase. I don't think she's a bad person. I just think she's a Republican to her bone marrow even if that Republicanism in its current form or present political figures presents a real threat to the well being of America. Palin was a threat to our well being. Unqualified, hate mongering, abjectly ignorant and proud of it (!).

It didn't help that Peggy then went on to say what I think is perhaps one of the worst copouts I've ever heard from a journalist. Her idea of what to do about the torture allegations, now proven. What was it? "Some things should be mysterious. Sometimes you need to just walk on by." I don't really take her seriously anymore.

That was a great open mic moment though. I laughed.

[MVPOnline]

I think this whole debacle says a lot more about Noonan than Palin or anyone else.

She's about as credible as any other right-wing commentator in this country - which is none whatsoever.

[maryyooch]

Noonan forgot that Palin had to hire a Town Administrator (manager) while she was mayor. Oh yeah, right before she QUIT.

[JNV]

What the hell is this about? Noonan eviscerated Palin in print.

[jade7243]

Only well after the election and only well after all of Noonan's other buddies were doing it,. She's a Janey-Come-Lately. She's never first or out front on anything. And if the wind blows, she whirls about like rooster weathervane.

If Palin were to some how some way resurrect herself, Noonan would be right there singing her praises again.

[goesto11]

I'm certainly not a Noonan fan, and I believe Palin is utterly vacuous. But the central premise of this posting is faulty.

It's entirely possible for Noonan to believe all the things she wrote, and still also believe that Palin is not the most qualified to be VP.

Those things aren't necessarily in conflict.

[NorwegianShooter]

No, we are a nation of Chicagoans. Or put another way, a nation of "urban-suburban hip hop settings." 58% of all Americans live in an urban area of 200,000 people or more.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm

[Aaror]

Actually, many of the "small towns," are suburbs. If you look at what percentage of the US population lives in or near the large cities, it is now a majority.
But if you call Carmichael or Fair Oaks CA "small towns," (suberbs of Sacramento I lived and worked in), or Kenilworth IL (suburb or Chicago), small towns, then you can claim we are a rural nation.
Guess what, if you get stuck in rush hour traffic for an hour because you are 50 miles from the center of one of the 262 cites, you are not in the same America as Wasilla, Alaska.
I used to live in Wasilla too, I would walk from school to the library and wait for my dad to drive me home. Depending on how you count it, we might have been able to claim 3 stoplights (was Trunk road in Wasilla or Palmer???), all on the highway. We didn't have a mall, and we drove to Anchorage to shop. We got our first Walmart while I lived there, and then the city moved the border so Walmart would pay city taxes, and Walmart abandoned the building and built a new store across the street to avoid the 2% tax.
I have not seen anywhere that rural since I left Alaska...