Friday roundup

Ratings justice. No thanks to some people.

That's not racist at all. People are so sensitive these days.

Some good bad puns in Milbank's first paragraph.

A compelling plea to get over soundbite discourse and gaffe analysis:

The more concerned you are to avoid saying anything wrong or offensive, the less likely you are to say anything inspiring or true. We have elected a president with a speculative mind. He wrote a book worth reading -- wrote it himself! -- even before running for president. It's interesting to hear what he thinks about various subjects -- even those that don't immediately affect his own presidency. But every teachable episode we put him through teaches him that speculation is risky. And the riskier we make it, the less of it we're likely to get.

A great interview or book review, with a concept described on the last page that, should mom embrace it, would make it tolerable or even interesting for us to have intelligent conversations:

That the truth is out there somewhere and I don't fully possess it and you don't fully possess it and our job then is to listen and learn and imagine enough to be able to get to that truth.