Ron Fournier, doing double-duty as a reporter and editorialist, writes:

For one thing, Palin accepted at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in the same fundraising scheme at the center of a public corruption scandal that led to the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens. The contributions, made during Palin’s failed 2002 bid to become Alaska’s lieutenant governor, were not illegal for her to accept. But they show how Palin, who has bucked Stevens and his allies, is nonetheless beholden to Alaska’s old guard.

The donations show no such thing. If $4,500, six years ago — call it $750 a year — makes one “beholden,” then you could lease an entire congressional subcommittee for about $25,000 a year. (In which case, who wants to go in on the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations?) But that is poppycock. The VECO business, to which Mr. Fournier alludes, seems to have been a banal little scam of the sort politics attracts: Employees were apparently given bonuses on the understanding that those bonuses would be used to make political contributions. People have been convicted of crimes. But Palin’s conduct in the matter, far from being merely “not illegal,” as Mr. Fournier puts it, was pretty stand-up, which even the AP notices — in the last two paragraphs:

Indeed, Palin has had her share of run-ins with Stevens, including a dustup earlier this year in which Stevens accused Palin of not being enthusiastic enough about his efforts to bring federal earmark money to Alaska. She has also called on Stevens’ son, Ben, to resign as national committeeman for the state party.
She was among the first Alaska Republicans to urge Stevens to answer questions about the FBI investigation.

Wire-service paragraphs are the opposite of the Marines: Last in, first out. You can be sure that those important sentences at the end will be cut from a lot of newspapers.