After a segment with NBC's Chuck Todd ended today, Republican consultant Mike Murphy and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan were caught on a live mike ridiculing the choice of Sarah Palin.
"It's over," said Noonan, who then responded to a question of whether Palin is the most qualified Republican woman McCain could have chosen.
"The most qualified? No. I think they went for this — excuse me — political bullshit about narratives," she said. "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 chimed in:
"The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."
Noonan's blunt call contrasted with her conflicted column today saying Palin "could become a transformative political presence."
"The Sarah Palin choice is really going to work, or really not going to work," Noonan wrote. "It's not going to be a little successful or a little not; it's not going to be a wash. She is either going to be magic or one of history's accidents. She is either going to be brilliant and groundbreaking, or will soon be the target of unattributed quotes by bitter staffers shifting blame in all 'The Making of the President 2008' books."
UPDATE: Noonan tries to explain her remarks, and says that what's "over" isn't, she meant, McCain's campaign, but that what's over is the truth to the belief that "whatever the base of the Republican party thinks is what America thinks."
