actually, matthew yglesias raises a good point. it is kind of strange that peggy noonan and mike murphy's public comments about the mccain campaign (e.g.) don't correspond with what seem to be their actual opinions as captured by the live mike.
i mean, they both regularly appear in the media to give their opinion about politics. hell, noonan is a professional opinion columnists. and when they appear they are there to give their opinion to the public. that's their job. in noonan's case, i think it's her only job (murphy is also a republican political consultant).
but it turns out that they're not doing their job. instead, they're just parroting the official position of the mccain campaign. i guess as a consultant, it is understandable that murphy would be pushing the republican candidate.1 but that doesn't explain noonan. why is the wall street journal wasting its money paying an opinion columnist who isn't actually giving her opinion? couldn't they get essentially the same thing by just publishing mccain campaign press releases? they could probably do that for free. if she's not giving her actual opinions, what are they paying her for? it seems to me that the wall street journal is getting ripped off.
i should add that i think noonan's explanation is pretty hilarious. does her tortured "it's over" backtrack make any sense to you? yeah, the WSJ sure is getting its money's worth!
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1-of course that begs the question why networks would invite political consultants giving their opinions on the air. it doesn't seem like they're good places to go if you're looking for reasoned analysis.
