Noonan: 'Over' Didn't Mean Mac

Columnist Peggy Noonan has been catching flak since being caught on tape saying "It's over" during a frank assessment of John McCain's veep choice. But the Wall Street Journal writer insists she wasn't pronouncing Mac's White House hopes dead —she was simply remarking that the days of the GOP's base being connected to mainstream America are over, she writes.

Noonan, who said she feels "mugged" by the media after the flap, also apologized for using a "vulgar epithet" during her informal comments during a break on an MSNBC television panel. She used it while blasting the party's drive to chose a candidate not for experience, but for a person's effective role in an intended "narrative"—what the party hopes to communicate about itself.