Suddenly, the presidential campaigns are addressing an issue that should have been at the forefront of this year's election long ago. Call it "characters count." We know people - especially public figures - by the company they keep. And we need to know much more about, to put it charitably, the characters that have figured prominently for years in Barack Obama's life. Over the weekend, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin brought the issue to the fore by observing caustically that the Democrats' would-be commander in chief has "palled around with terrorists." The Obama campaign immediately deployed talking points and...