With friends like these: ‘Famous’ Noonan tells Palin to ‘suck it up and be serious’

After last week’s vice presidential debate, the McCain campaign ran a banner ad on the Washington Post website that read like something out of The Onion: The quote that Palin “killed. It was her night” was attributed to a “Famous Person.” That person is apparently conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan — whose criticisms of Palin might suggest that the banner ad error wasn’t so accidental.

Yesterday on The Laura Ingraham Show, Noonan said both McCain and Palin “ought to get more serious”:

I don’t like the populist stuff she’s doing. I don’t like the I-am-Joe-Sixpack stuff. She’s running for vice president of the United States… Our country is facing huge challenges. Suck it up and be serious. And don’t be doing this cute colloquial stuff. It doesn’t sit right with me. And it doesn’t seem fitting.

The comments echo what Noonan said during the Republican National Convention when she thought a microphone was turned off. When she learned Palin was the GOP’s nominee, she said, “It’s over.” Asked about Palin’s qualifications, she answered, “The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives and [inaudible] the picture.”