In the heady atmosphere of last week's Republican convention -- electrified by Sarah Palin's barnstorming speech as the vice-presidential candidate -- a curious fact seems to have been overlooked. On paper, the new darling of Christian conservatives ticks all the right boxes as only a media-taunting, oil-drilling, gun-toting, abortion-hating, creationist mother of five could. Equally at home posing for photographs with her children and dead animals, she sends out an irresistible mating call to evangelical voters who suspect that John McCain is secretly too secular for their taste. Did his team carry out sufficient checks before selecting an inexperienced state...