You have no friends named "palin".

Sob.

I had been so proud, the day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate, to be her friend on Facebook. I hadn't even done it cold, either; a friend of mine had recommended to me that I friend her, and I was happy to see that she allowed the connection later that day so I could read her status updates and see that she was excited, tired, shopping for shoes, and so on.

I thought at first it had been something I said. But in doing a search on Facebook, it appeared that her entry was gone completely. And while there were still some Sarah Palins listed, they weren't the same ones. Two were listed as being in Anchorage but they had only one friend each. For a number of the Sarah Palins listed, you could no longer click on their name and go to their page.

I also checked the person who had recommended that I friend her in the first place, and she's no longer his friend, either.

There's plenty of other places on Facebook where you can talk about Sarah Palin. There's three pages -- including the official campaign page -- and more than 500 Sarah Palin groups, ranging from One Million Strong for Sarah (26,294), One Million Strong Against Sarah (23,278), I Have More Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah (91,417), and so on.

But I can no longer be her friend and find out about how she shops for shoes. Sigh.