The link you quoted works for me.
It would be nice if they learned not to lie through their goddamned teeth while on the air, and then tell the truth when they think they are among friends. But what pundit will ever learn that lesson?
The only thing she appears to be backpedaling on is what she meant by “It’s over.” And while I don’t entirely buy the explanation, I’m not going to take the original comment as evidence that Noonan believed that McCain can’t win. It was a vague, pessimistic comment in a casual conversation.
Which would you prefer they stop doing? Hiding their true feelings when on air, or revealing them when they’re among friends.
Well, I’d rather they quit lying on air, but I know that’s a pipe dream.
Part of being a spokesman for an organization is that, however you feel about the organization or the decisions it makes, you don’t badmouth it publically. If I’m an employee of Campbell’s Soup, even if I think our new “Tomato and Pea” soup sucks, when the press asks me how it is, I can’t say, “I’d rather be eating dog vomit!” I have to talk about how it’s the hot new soup that the kids are eating and just generally talk it up.
It’s no different with the Republican or Democratic parties. If I’m Mike Murphy, and I make my living advising Republican candidates, it’s not a smart idea for me to go on TV and be vocally critical of the Republican presidential candidate. I do want to continue working and getting paid after all.
There would be no problem whatsoever IMO if the propaganda people believed in their message. This is not the case here, and I have to assume now that many smart right wing people really do not cherish the task to continue to support the current sorry “choice” they have now.
Of course if the spokespersons here do not lose any press positions or gigs they have now, that will confirm my opinion that many on the right really do not care about the sources they have even when they become aware that they are being lied to.
I think the real point here is that Peggy Noonan is a brilliant, talented person who appears to have a major deficiency in the rhetoric immunity area of her brain. You’d think Reagan was Santa Claus, John Wayne and Jesus all at once if you only had her writings about her time as a speech writer to go by, and she seems generally to be all too willing to convince herself of what she wants to believe rather than to examine issues rationally from a distance.
But if they are just paid shills, then why put them on the air? How interesting would an analysis of Campbell’s soup be if it were done purely by paid employees of Campbell’s soup? That’s what you’re doing by putting Noonan, Murphy, et al on the air together. The whole thing is corrupt to the core.