Usually, the mockery that stems from a given week’s episode of “Meet The Press” is predominately aimed online at host Chuck Todd, and features some viewers’ skewed notion that Todd is a secret agent for the Grand Old Party on a mission to sink the USS Joseph Robinette Biden.

That’s where this Sunday was different, and it happened toward the end of the show during the panel segment — so, it’s likely most readers missed it.

Before I share the clip of former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan being mercilessly derided by fellow panelists Garrett Haake, Andrea Mitchell, and Kimberly Atkins Stohr — some of whom she has likely attended D.C. cocktail parties with for decades — let’s look at one other thing because it will be important later.

Here was how the furious, social media commentary on the segment was described by some member of Gen Z who works at Twitter:

Viewers react to NBC News contributor Peggy Noonan’s comments about the Republican Party and the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade during an appearance on Meet The Press on Sunday

Now, here’s how it actually went. The host says:

You know, Peggy, politically, during the era of Roe it was the Democrats that would be infighting over, “Where do you draw the line? Late-term abortions.” Republicans did a great job of wedging. Because they’re – now, all of a sudden it’s the Republicans that are going to have to because some are going to want exceptions. Governor Hutchinson talked about it. But Garrett brought up a point. Is that going to survive primaries?

Noonan begins answering this way:

Well, this is going to work its way out.

I would say everybody here, I think, agrees that when polled, the American people say they’re for Roe. They’re for – for the right of abortion as seen in the Constitution. But the minute you get beyond that, to questions of the cutoff, “Is it 12 weeks or 14?” Then, then support goes down.

It all becomes more complicated. The fact was, I think, legally Roe and Casey just were sort of incompatible with getting all of those reservations worked out in the law. So I think that is part of what drove it.

But she pivots to answering from a political angle–whence laughter and finger-pointing starts from the jackals. Here it is, with context:

PEGGY NOONAN:

Look, you know what the Republican Party should do now? It should use this victory, if you see it that way, to change itself and become a party that helps women –

ANDREA MITCHELL:

But that’s not going to happen.

CHUCK TODD:

All right —

PEGGY NOONAN:

– change its reputation –

KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:

But that’s not going to happen.

PEGGY NOONAN:

– and become a party that helps women and children, becomes –

CHUCK TODD:

All right –

PEGGY NOONAN:

– responsible –

KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:

Why are we here?

PEGGY NOONAN:

–and supportive.

Chuck Todd: I’m really mediocre & unwatchable

Peggy Noonan: Hold my Kool-Aid

pic.twitter.com/AcfUpuDFAn

— Tara Dublin ☮️🇺🇦🌻 (@taradublinrocks) June 26, 2022

Two points here, first on the Twitter narrative. The WSJ columnist’s remarks on “Meet the Press” were not primarily “about the Republican Party and the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.” Noonan, like any responsible journalist, started with her lede. And it’s full of inconvenient facts for Democrats about where the American people stand on abortion. That isn’t approval of abortion on demand, according to polling that dropped Sunday, as my colleague Bonchie wrote. They’re for a very limited definition of what’s acceptable or reasonable.

Second, I don’t completely agree with Noonan on Republicans’ need to rehab their image with women. Is there a disconnect between GOP policy and how the legacy media, Hollywood, and Democrats with media megaphones paint it? Yes. But the false narrative that Republicans (especially Republican men) are misogynists and working their darnedest to keep women from succeeding, which has been cleverly built up by the left, is not reality.

But on this point, I will give Ms. Noonan some grace. Baby Boomers are idealists at heart, so I have a feeling she is, as well. According to online sources, she is around my parents’ age (she was born in 1950).

That said, it’s tough to witness supposedly “professional journalists” treating anyone, particularly someone whom they’re essential co-workers with, this way. They should be ashamed of themselves, but we all know that’s unlikely to happen–at least, not on.a paltry shadow of NBC News’ once-great news show.