Wherever people behind podiums are yelling at other people behind podiums over some passing and inessential matter–the American political press is there! For the latest and possibly the most gratuitous case in point, witness the yards and yards of fevered dispatches and commentaries about the New Yorker’s Obama cover this week. Let’s let Jon Stewart have the first and last word on that subject: "It’s a trifle. It’s nothing. There’s so many other things to talk about." (And it appears the web-surfing public is with Stewart: Google Trends results for Monday, the day the story went large, show that related searches failed to crack the top 20 that day, and it was out of the top 100 by Tuesday. The new JibJab video we posted this morning, by contrast, is number one on today’s hot searches. But among journos and other jaw-flappers, it accounts for a staggering 2700-plus stories at Google News–in two days’ time.)

Daily Show: Jon Stewart on the New Yorker cover (5:39)