...but I'm thoroughly unexcited about the YouTube element of tonight's Democratic debate. CNN is vetting the questions, so what, exactly, is so great about this? Is there any chance that they're going to choose a question so provocative, so groundbreaking, and so incisive that there's no way it would have been asked had this process not been opened to the public? I mean, check out these submissions:

-- a man standing in front of an ATM, asking how the candidates would stop the spread of check cashing centers and predatory lending in the inner cities.

-- a woman holding a picture of a brother wounded in Vietnam who had post-traumatic stress disorder and who never got the necessary help. She wanted to know how the candidates would ensure today's veterans get better treatment.

-- a woman saying she had to charge her health care expenses to her credit cards and wanted to know how the candidates would make health care affordable and available to all. "I'm sick about not being able to afford being sick," she says.

Good questions? Yes. Questions that wouldn't have been asked otherwise? Nope. The YouTube questions are a gimmick, a means of making it seem as though average Americans are intimately involved in the debate process, despite the fact that they aren't. I'm confused as to why this "YouTube debate" is getting so much attention, and being treated as something exciting and new, when the actual questions themselves remain under the complete control of the same people as always.