The LA Times writes re. McCain's vetting of Sarah Palin: According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.So if you need to know something, make sure you've looked in the places Google may not know about ... like, say, a small town where everyone knows everyone anyway ...

The day after Hillary led a celebration of the Democratic nominee and of her historic ceiling-cracking, there were cracks showing in the seams of CNN's wall-to-crawl coverage of the convention. With actual unity rearing its unglamorous head, CNN drummed up "body language expert" Dan Hill to analyze whether there could maybe, hopefully, be bitterness and deceit lurking beneath a rousingly positive speech and an uncharacteristically warm message toward Obama. Of course!, Hill dutifully proclaims ... "... the cheeks didn't tend to lift very much, it was really almost what I would call a 'crocodile smile.'" Thank goodness. There's still flame-fanning gold in them thar Hills. Reading this on CNN.com's Politicker, I felt the usual anger at a pandering media and a down-bred audience rise up. But then I checked out the reader comments below the entry and my faith in people, and in open comment threads, began to return. "wow….well,…

CNN proves, like Kerry and Edwards did in the 2004 Iowa primary, that established institutions can still shoe-leather their way ahead of online innovation and a supremely tight campaign. I'm bummed that the Obama text message didn't get to break news, because it actually had me excited about waiting for a text message, and for the watershed attention SMS was getting. Larry King a few minutes ago: "What has been a closely guarded secret is now known: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware is Barack Obama's pick for vice president. They'll appear Saturday at a rally in Springfield, Illinois. "Text messages will be sent out early Saturday morning, but we have the news right now." Paul Begala just flubbed and referred to him as "Senator O'Biden." We may be hearing that again too. photo by me MORE: arrrggh, still on splash page of BO.com as of 1:30 a.m. In Michael Silberman's…