And the Beast Shall Eat Itself

A hot microphone, a revelation of dishonesty, and the violation of a long-held gentleman's agreement destroyed the credibility of the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan today, and may have changed the complexion of the American news media forever.

Noonan published an article just this morning labeling Sarah Palin as "a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy."

This same afternoon on MSNBC after a segment with NBC's Chuck Todd, Republican consultant Mike Murphy and Noonan were captured on still-live microphones ridiculing McCain's running mate.

Every indication is that the raw video was leaked directly from an increasingly partisan MSNBC to liberal blog Talking Points Memo.

With that leak, Noonan's credibility as a columnist was severely damaged if not destroyed, a fact she seems to realize even as she becomes the first casualty as a long held gentleman's agreement among journalists to overlook each others biases, faults, mistakes and lies has been ripped apart. The media now no longer looks after their own, and naked partisanship is now the order of the day.

After being exposed, Noonan wrote that she was "mugged by the nature of modern media," which is both absolutely true and utterly irrelevant.

Noonan revealed herself a hypocrite, and MSNBC, a network that has abandoned all illusions of objective journalism in favor of naked advocacy for Barack Obama and an exclusive allegiance to partisan politics of the far left wing of the Democratic Party, shattered a common courtesy between journalists, in order to tear another journalist down for a minor temporary gain.

All bets are off now, all gentleman's agreements dead.

Welcome to the real world, kids.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:32 PM

Comments

1 Sorry Peggy. You're out'd and Insiders are on the rocks. Stick a fork in ya. You're done.

Mrs. Smith is coming to Washington.

Posted by: dw at September 03, 2008 10:39 PM (/AWK4)

2 I declare a class warfare.

Peggy, a silver spoon parasite who "attended Fairleigh Dickinson University" (an elite private school), was married to a chief economist for the bloated Federal government and has become intertwined in the D.C. beltway crowd seeking love, adoration and respect by other parasites, has done nothing of value for our nation. She is the proverbial grasshopper and we are the ants.

The ants are tired. We don't need grasshoppers in times of $4.70 diesel and $4.00 gasoline. Our tax burdon is insane. Every time we turn around, the damn grasshopper has hocked another $10 billion in loans to the Chinese, and listed us as co-signers. That damn grasshopper also has a bunch of friends, the roaches, that hang around drinking beer and making a mess out of the place, taking out more loans with our names on them. Yea, he's a popular sort with the roaches, but we're tired of being the sole earner for this party.

People like Peggy, Obama and the other insiders need to go. It's time to throw the grasshoppers out. Let them discover the cold, hard truth of work, taxes, hardship. The party's over. Palin and McCain have reminded us that we are the ones that provide for the wealth of this nation, and it's time that we see that wealth go for the right causes.

Posted by: redherkey at September 03, 2008 11:34 PM (kjqFg)

3 What's even worse is having to listen to JLo at NRO try to justify how Noonan (and other pundits/columnists) can have, essentially, on the record and off the record personas, where one might not neccesarily agree with the other and somehow this is supposed to be viewed as reasonable, expected, and acceptable--apparently Sullivan isn't the only one that's off his meds (though he's by far the most far gone).

Posted by: ECM at September 03, 2008 11:45 PM (q3V+C)

4 So you concede, then, that Fox News lost "all illusions of objective journalism in favor of naked advocacy" for John McCain when it released the tapes of Jesse Jackson complaining about Obama?

Posted by: nitpicker at September 04, 2008 07:58 AM (8X9tr)

5 nit

I wasn't aware that Jesse Jackson was a journalist. A race-baiting poverty pimp, certainly. A candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, yes.

But a journalist? Amazing what you learn in the comment sections of blogs these days.

Posted by: iconoclast at September 04, 2008 01:34 PM (ex0JG)

6 I'm not sure how you can claim any partisan effect from Jackson. Did that hurt Barry or help? It sure hurt Jesse, is he one with the Democrats? I suspect many Democrats would object. But the point is moot as Fox has never claimed metaphysical objectivity, quite the reverse. It is the Bigs who do that or did, until Olberman. As for Noonan, she lost me long ago on unrelated grounds.

Posted by: megapotamus at September 04, 2008 01:47 PM (LF+qW)

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