How much do the small clues tell us about the health of the democracy? Maybe not so much, but here are my recent clues. I asked a specific question of our IN-2nd Congressional district representative, Jackie Walorski (@RepWalorski), in hopes of seeing where she got an unlikely seeming piece of data. I got a form letter back with no hint of an answer to my question. I asked a local journalist if he thought he'd get an answer, and within an hour the journalist had an answer and passed it on via Twitter. So we know how to get a call returned in Washington, eh? But the answer was a link to a "think tank" piece, so it was in itself a political document, not a source you could trust uncritically, and I was back to square one. Was the IN-2 representative's "fact" any good? I still didn't know. Was the journalist able to help--well, not really, since the information needed to be evaluated further. Here's the position of the citizen, on his or her own, ignored when it is convenient in Washington, aided but perhaps feebly at times by the press, and stuck with "facts" that need to be inspected further. Not all that healthy, I'd say.