There is no other pill to take, so swallow the one that makes you ill.

So the lesson for young writers from all this: Be Tracy Flick. Don't say anything remotely interesting, certainly not over e-mail. If you lack the mental discipline to completely suppress critical thought about people and institutions you spend your life covering, get good at pretending. The lesson for activists: Our news cycles are so short that, with a little coordination, nothing is too tame or trivial to be transformed into a weapon of personal destruction--so that's an excellent use of your resources. We'll doubtless get--are getting--precisely the quality of public discourse we deserve.

And this tidbit from prized bottom Tucker Carlson :

Almost a year later, when Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital with chest pains, Washington Post reporter David Weigel had a wish of his own. “I hope he fails,” Weigel cracked to fellow liberal reporters on the “Journolist” email list-serv.

“Too soon?” he wondered.