sys.__stdout__ is quite often abused (two independent sightings on 
c.l.py yesterday): people use it to restore stdout instead of saving 
the previous stdout.

The real intended use for __stdout__ isn't all that clear (I keep 
wondering myself why it's there in the first place; its use case 
must be quite obscure), but more importantly I think the sys docs 
should contain a warning that __stdout__ is *not* suitable to 
restore sys.stdout after redirection.

I'd produce a patch if I knew how to better describe what 
sys.__stdout__ was *for*.