Obama is a Senator, and he was a candidate in a long, acrimonious primary campaign. He has been vetted by the Clintons and their organization, consumate pros. If they couldn't find anything worse than what has been found already, then there isn't anything.

The McCain campaign launched Sarah Palin after having done very little, apparently, in the line of vetting itself. Personally, I believe his people neglected to do this in the cynical belief that, because she's a young, pretty woman with magazine-cover-type creds, no one would look any deeper.

Unfortunately for them, and for her, she has been nominated to extremely high office. Lots of people have more interest in discovering what she really thinks about a lot of things, with a very short period in which to do it. Why? Because the person nominated to the position of Vice President ought to be able to be President. She is not.

The item that attempts to excuse her attempt at book-banning is crap. The alleged list of books circulated through email is false, I agree, and have done. So have professional library blogs and list-servs, even as the censorship is confirmed. No one makes a rhetorical or informational request of that kind more than once. I know how these things work. It's a hazard of my job.

The abuse of power accusation has been supported by an official Alaska state government investigation. This trumps a blog post.

Those, coupled with her penchant for lying about her opponent in ways that can be dangerous to his safety and for verbal regurgitation of talking points rather than demonstrating an ability to speak thoughtfully off-the-cuff, are enough for me to be appalled at the thought of her in the White House.