"I just realized I'm on camera... looking like a blogger blogging about the election, but I'm blogging about Britney Spears, ha ha, no one knows..."

That's something I wrote on November 7, 2006 — Election Day — when I was blogging from a room full of bloggers assembled by CNN so there could be something to show on camera to demonstrate that bloggers are blogging the election. The quote is in the post "Wait! Forget the election! Britney Spears is divorcing Kevin Federline!"

Considering that, a reader who remembers that post emails, wondering why I let a mere primary, viewed in the privacy of my home prevent me from blogging about the current Britney news. This is an excellent — and bloggy — question. The answer is 3-part.

1. We're picking a president, not just a Congress, like back in '06, and the Iowa caucuses were utterly fascinating, not just because we'd been watching and talking about this cast of characters for 2 years and finally some actual choosing was taking place, but also because we were seeing thrilling upsets in 2 parties. We were getting results at last, but we were also at the beginning of the process, and the situation was ripe for observation and analysis.

2. Sitting at home, I was better able to perceive and think and write about what was happening, which was something I wanted to do. I wanted to do that too at the CNN party — and that desire was augmented by a sense of obligation — but the pressure and the distractions made it very hard to do my usual bloggerly thing. I needed to adapt and find a way to write in that environment, and writing about Britney was just a little thing that was easy to do — a warm-up.

3. Britney was more of a lighthearted distraction then. Divorce is a serious matter, but a celebrity divorce seems to confirm our belief that celebrities are living shallow lives, that they are starved for the things that we have, things that are so much more important. But Britney's current troubles are pretty sad. ("Britney Spears was locked in a psych ward on Friday night after a meltdown that ended when she was strapped to a gurney and rushed to a hospital.") It's hard to see any value — even as a distraction — to pointing at her.