Jon, it’s very like the other side to engage in the attack ad hominem and leave substance for another day (that never comes) so I’m surprised to find you doing it.  Cashill has written a very thorough analysis.  If you’re content to have that be your reaction to it, so be it.  As I said, I resisted reading Cashill’s analysis for a long time — and he’s not the first to advance the idea that Obama did not write his book — because I didn’t want to be accused of wading into what could be taken as nutter stuff.  I was then persuaded that I should at least look at it with an open mind.  I’m convinced it raises major questions.  I tried to treat them in a serious way.  I expected to get gruff, but I did hope it wouldn’t come from my own (diminishing) ranks.  But such is the way it is these days. 

Do me a favor, though.  The next time someone complains that we really don’t know enough about Obama — that he won’t talk about Columbia, release his records or anything he wrote there; that he won’t produce anything from his Harvard days; that there seems to have been a concerted effort to purge documentation of his connections to socialist associations; that he has misrepresented the fact and depth of his relationships with some troublesome people — do make sure to repeat your thoughtful response that you’ve seen no evidence that evidence is relevant.  We’re about to elect to the presidency a blank slate of the Left who comes to us with a neon sign that says ”SLATE NOT ACTUALLY BLANK IF YOU LOOK HARD ENOUGH.”  As the sign flashes, we’ve got an awful lot of people content to say, “Oh that, well if you just toss another blanket over it, the glare isn’t so bad.  Meanwhile, can we please just get back to the really important issues, like another targeted 2.67341 percent tax cut for left-handed working mothers — and quickly, before Obama offers 2.71523!”