Just a quick note to Jay Newton-Small: Illinois voters do not "brave snow flurries." We call it "going outside."

This is the second time I've noticed what seems like a disproportionate amount of calls to civic duty for voting in a midterm primary, and I'm starting to wonder if that's a function of the relatively low appeal of this particular calendar date. Still, the disconnect is large on this one, and outside of making sure Todd Stroger doesn't make it to November, I don't see enough incentive for me to pretend I belong to one side or the other.

As an independent, I still don't feel wholly comfortable voting in party primaries, although I think the judicial section probably straddles both ballots. Even then, the one judge I would like very much to vote against is not on this ballot. If there were an open primary, I'd feel differently, but as it stands, I feel like an intruder, and not in that good "subvert the system by voting for the least viable candidate on the other side" way.

If the reporting over the weekend on health care reform is to be believed, we may see a test of the relentless attention deficit disorder that inhabits both the Washington media and the blogosphere. Then again, this notion that more can get done once the media has moved on to the next shiny thing does make a ton of intuitive sense, unless, I suppose, you're in the media.

If we do see the bill passed later in the year, how many of these "journalists" that declared it dead and buried either when Scott Brown won the Massachusetts election or when Rahm Emmanuel said HCR might slip behind the jobs bill and financial reform will own up to their institutional short-sightedness?

I'm sure that it's not everybody on the left, but the fact that some liberals are getting all bent out of shape because Jon Stewart made fun of their guy furthers my notion that some percentage of the political chattering class (a) are way too sensitive and (b) don't understand how comedy works.

It's a sad commentary on the political newsmedia any way you look at it, because it's so awkwardly forcing The Daily Show into the ADD-fueled cable/blog news cycle. I'm sure I'm projecting a little, but from my view, Stewart eschews the red team/blue team bullshit that forms the unfortunate basis for most modern punditry.

This is not a matter of Stewart "turning" on the president. It's not even some lofty ideal of speaking truth to power, regardless of which side is in power. It's about going where the jokes are.