Conservative radio host Rusty Humphries asked Palin whether she'd "make the birth certificate an issue" if she runs for president in 2012. Oh no, she wouldn't have to "bother to make it an issue," because the valiant tea partiers of America are doing it for her—and "rightfully" so!

We've come to expect no better from Le Rogue, but for old time's sake, let's parse the levels of insanity:

• 1. Prima facie: She is encouraging birthers. This is a low even Palin has avoided stooping to until now.
• 
  
• 2. She is encouraging birthers, despite knowing that they are wrong. Listen to the way Palin stalls and diverts, starting with a protracted "Umm... I think..." She is careful to point to the public's fascination with the story, and to note that she herself couldn't care less, but supports their efforts. She sounds like an adult child placating her senile mother: Of course you get can your driver's license back, even though you crashed into a tree. Many people get their driver's licenses back, and I will certainly help you try. She knows the birthers are wrong, yet she congratulates their efforts and calls Obama's nationality "fair game." This is pandering in its barest, most transparent form, and the fact that Sarah thinks she can get away with it testifies to how stupid, directionless, and desperate she knows her followers are.
• 
  
• 3. If she were capable of higher levels of thinking—like extrapolation or synthesis or this very complicated intellectual maneuver known as if/then logic—she'd recognize that if it was a "weird conspiracy freak thing" to demand Trig's birth certificate, then it is a "weird conspiracy freak thing" to demand Obama's, too. (I can't believe I'm even typing this out. This must be the phenomenon known as "stupefying.") So either Palin is stuck at the bottom level of the below brain-use pyramid, or she and her followers are "weird conspiracy freaks."
• 
  

  4. Just because a bunch of loons went "grassy knoll" on Trig doesn't give her the right to use their frightful logic to impugn Obama. In fact, Obama stood up for Sarah and her family and told everyone to back off the birth-related gossip.

  In conclusion, I blame the entire fiasco that is Sarah Palin on the Miss Alaska pageant. If they'd just let her win all those years ago, maybe she could have used it to earn the fame and fortune she so desperately craves, and she'd never have felt compelled to go into politics, and wouldn't be terrorizing America to the tune of "Sarah, Queen of the Wild Frontier" (which Humphries opened the segment with) right now.

Universal decided to promote its movie "Fourth Kind," about real live actual alien abductions in Alaska that actually happened, by publishing a fake archive of fake news stories from real Alaska papers, purporting to report on the fake things that happened in the fake movie. Then the real Alaska papers were like, whoa, hey, pretty sure we didn't write any real obits of fictional characters lately, and Universal was like, ha, you're right, we're giving $20k to the Alaska Press Club to show you how sorry we are. The studio also vowed to pull all the fake stories off the internet, but, of course, you can still find some cached on Google.

The Tribune Co. is very interested in expressing outrage over any Hollywood movies that may choose to use fake LA Times headlines to recount any imaginary tales of murder, scandal, or disaster, whether human or alien. Call them.

Let's go straight to some quotes from the interview:

On the Vanity Fair piece: "I stand by it and I'm cool with everything I said. The route I chose to pick was just because they wouldn't let me see my kid. So I didn't really think that there was another way. That was the huge thing that made me do this. I don't want to (say it was retaliation)...I mean, I guess. If they would've let me see my kid, everything's fine, I never would've had to do any of that. They were gettin' scared. They know I know a lot. I still know more than what's out there. Then it got bad again and I said screw it, Vanity Fair article.

And on the custody issues Levi's having now: It's startin' to get bad again. They're making it kind of a pain in the ass again (to see Trip). I know I'm gonna end up (going to court). There're a lot of secrets and a lot of things that I haven't put out there that are bad...so I don't know if I want to. Some of the stuff I got, kept in, would either really hurt her or really get her in trouble. So, I really don't want to say anything else. I'm not that kind of person, no matter how much she pisses me off. I don't want to leak anything huge on her.

Okay, so, questions:

1. Is Levi Johnston screwing with all of us? It's entirely possible. An interesting way to gauge this would be to figure out the timeline on the Vanity Fair piece? Did Levi approach VF? Vice versa? Was there a lag between an offer and the acceptance of the offer? Despite all of the custodial trauma Levi's claiming, you've gotta wonder if he isn't enjoying his time in the limelight. I can't imagine he isn't. On the other hand, walking around L.A. with the same big guys he was seen at Monkey Bar with have been the most egregious extent of his famewhoring. He could, theoretically, be doing much, much worse.

2. What the hell isn't he talking about? And why isn't he? Sure, Levi's claiming principles as the obstacle we're facing to knowing everything he's got on the Palin family, but this 19 year-old kid from the sticks is either as innocent as he's assumed to be, or is far, far savvier than anyone could ever imagine (or at least savvy enough to listen to good advice). Hanging on to whatever he knows and leaking info out in droplets could maybe, possibly, profoundly scare the shit out of Sarah Palin and her oft-projected 2012 run's potential. Then again, maybe she isn't running, maybe she actually is done, and maybe a cost-benefit breakdown of what Levi's leaks could get him as opposed to the trouble it could cause for Palin's entire family really isn't worth it to him. He's a 19 year-old father, though: so what, exactly, is?

3. Will the threat of a lawsuit do anything to the Palin camp? And what could a lawsuit mean for them? Either way, we're gonna find out, and with it, the weight of whatever Johnston may or may not have, and the character of his balls if forced to move it forward. [Ed. Oh, we'll definitely know that soon enough. Intimately.]

Listen to the audio. We read and read about a lot of bullshit. We watch it on TV and in movies. But just the audio track? It's different. There's that dumb line from a movie: the truth just sounds different. Well, man, it does.

'Could be that there's another way for him to earn a buck that doesn't have to do with being in the spotlight—he remembers at the beginning of the interview his prospects in hockey or as an electrician—because Levi sounds down, out, and tired of dealing with all of this shit. Maybe he just wants to see his kid, and move forward with his life as something other than Levi Johnston, Asspain to Sarah Palin.

Or he's an underdog genius who's playing the media and the entire Palin narrative to his liking. At this point, pick one: the odds are about the same. More highlights:

On Sarah Palin's Vice President nomination: "Didn't mean anything to me. I didn't care. I didn't think it was that huge. I'm just gonna sit here and not say a word."

On Palin's personal interaction nature: "You can catch her in a lie a lot of the time. She don't read the newspaper. A lot of the things she's sayin', I know she's lying."

On the outdoorsmen nature of the Palin family: "I'd say (Sarah's) definitely stretchin' it big time. They're not a big hunting family."

On racism in the Palin household: "No, not (Sarah Palin)..no. She never said anything like that. She's not the racist type."

On Palin's loss: "After the election, she didn't want us to get married, really. You could tell that they're all sad about everything. I don't know, just her attitude towards everything was pretty down. I don't think she had much care for anything for a while. She hung around in her room a lot. I think she just wanted to be left alone for a while. She just went through a big depression, I think. She was bummed out bad."

On his breakup with Bristol: "There's no one to blame for it. I mean, if it didn't work, it didn't work."

On what he thinks of Sarah Palin now: "I still don't think bad about her. But...You know, just some of the shit she pulled on me—encouraging Bristol not to let me see the kid and everything else, from her acting like she liked me for four or five plus years, and then going on saying that stuff, is just ridiculous how fake they are...it's just ridiculous."

Again: the truth just sounds different. Is this it?

[Photo of Levi in "happier" times via Getty Images/Robyn Beck]

Todd has resigned from BP. Now that his wife is an accomplished author, he will just spend his winter snowmaching around or whatever, instead of working. It's a good thing the old lady's ghostwriter works so fast, right?

And Meg Stapleton has basically promised that the book will be full of plenty of paranoid attacks on everyone who has wronged poor Sarah so it should sell briskly.

No official reason for Todd's resignation was given, but early reports indicate Palin resigned from BP because the president asked him to go into space and blow up an asteroid.

How do I know this, you ask? Well, the answer to that question is perhaps best explained by a comment someone named Marvin Settle posted under Palin's note. He wrote:

Wow, and the public thought she wasn't educated enough to be President? That is some of the most well researched and thought out material I have ever read. Thanks Sarah.

Exactly! Thank you Marvin Settle. Thank you very much.

The note in question is supposed to be Palin's response to Obama's response to Palin's infamous "death panel" Facebook note. Here's a sampling of it:

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these "unproductive" members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

The President made light of these concerns. He said:

"Let me just be specific about some things that I've been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't, it's too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they're ready on their own terms. It wasn't forcing anybody to do anything." [1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled "Advance Care Planning Consultation." [2] With all due respect, it's misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often "if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain "the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice," and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now, let's just stop there because it doesn't even really take a careful examination of the entire note to deduce that it simply could not have been written by Sarah Palin, which leads one to pretty much dismiss all of the points it attempts to make. In fact, a cursory glance is more than sufficient to come to that realization as the note is obviously meticulously researched and footnoted, appears to be entirely grammatically correct (It even contains semicolons!), presents rather cogent arguments in a reasoned attempt to persuade, and on the whole is written articulately. In short, whoever composed this particular note is everything that Sarah Palin is not: thoughtful, patient, dedicated, thorough, and rational, traits that any casual, non-delusional observer of Sarah Palin would never, ever associate with her.

Another key indicator in determining that Sarah Palin did not write this particular note are the host of Palin rhetorical hallmarks missing from it. Just ask yourself this question: Is it possible for Sarah Palin to compose anything clocking in at just under 1000 words that's completely devoid of references to God, the troops, the liberal media, Alaska, Ronald Reagan, her baby with Down Syndrome, or a hilariously painful attempt to channel her inner Jack London with some great poetic flourish? No! There is absolutely no consistency between this Facebook note and anything we've ever seen written or spoken by Sarah Palin.

Interestingly, there are a couple of other coherent notes on Palin's Facebook page posted after the "death panel" note that refer to her in the third person, as if they were written by an aide or a staffer. Here is one such note. Perhaps someone was enlisted to speak for her after the "death panel" debacle?

So who's writing Sarah's Facebook notes? Hell, your guess is as good as mine. Meg Stapleton perhaps? Bill Kristol? An intern? The person ghostwriting her forthcoming book? Who knows! But whoever it is, their being enlisted to perform these services is obviously part of a diabolical plan to rehabilitate Palin's image as a staggering dipshit. However, they really should have eased into it, because it's just way too obvious that Sarah Palin did not write the note that was posted to her Facebook page tonight. Period.

What a sad, strange place Alaska is. The "Governor's Picnic," where Palin handed the reigns to Sean Parnell, takes place at Pioneer Park, which the locals still know as "Alaskaland" because it is in fact a theme park featuring a genuine steamboat, the railroad car that President Warren G. Harding rode in while touring Alaska in the 1920s, a carousel, and a mini-gold course. RV parking is $9 a day.

An Anchorage Press reporter milled about Alaskaland as Palin launched/ended her political career Sunday, interviewing local pols, reporters, and a guy who runs Santa's Candles and Gifts ("[Parnell is] down to earth people, just like Sarah.... [H]e will get the job done, and I think she's right in turning it over to him.")

The Politico's Jonathan Martin was there. He didn't think Alaska had summers.

Squinting in the sun, with an unnecessary fleece jacket tied around his waist, Martin says he's struck by the number of tourists who happened to be in Alaska and took time out of their vacations to attend one of the three Governor's Picnics leading up to the transfer of power.

The Associated Press sent a reporter from the D.C. bureau, who for some reason felt compelled to explain the organization's decision to cover Palin:

The Associated Press's Washington D.C. bureau has sent up Matthew Daly to cover the transfer of power. "We're not tired of the story at all," he says of Palin. "We think she's someone who has a lot of followers and want to know what she's doing. She represents a large constituency of the Republican Party, and also of all types-there are independents and Democrats that support her, and also she obviously has people who oppose her.

No one is tired of this story.

At first, we couldn't believe Palin actually said, "north to the future," but then we looked it up and saw that it's Alaska's state motto. North to the future? So Australia is living in the past? What happens when you reach the North Pole? That state is a fucking disaster.

Here's the video, followed by the text that O'Brien recognized as Ginsbergian poetry:

soaring through nature's finest show.
Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road
that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty,
the cold though, doesn't it split
the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime such extreme
summertime
about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter
than just some months ago, than
just some months from now,
with fireweed blooming
along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing
and carving
and reminding us that here,
Mother Nature wins.
It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild
good life teeming along the road that is
north to the future.

Reports the Anchorage Daily News:

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund.

In his report, (Thomas) Daniel said his interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with common sense.

An ordinary citizen facing legal charges is not likely to be able to generate donations to a legal defense fund, he wrote. "In contrast, Governor Palin is able to generate donations because of the fact that she is a public official and a public figure. Were it not for the fact that she is governor and a national political figure, it is unlikely that many citizens would donate money to her legal defense fund."

Palin's crackpot mouthpiece Meg Stapleton issued the following statement in regards to the matter, claiming that the whole thing still isn't resolved:

There is no final report. The Investigator is still confidentially reviewing this matter. It appears suspect that in the final days of the Governor's term, someone would again violate the law and announce a supposed conclusion before it is reached.

And, naturally, Palin took to her Twitter page to say basically the same thing:





However, Thomas Daniel claims that his report is final and that the case is closed and that Palin is guilty of violating Alaskan ethics laws, so somebody's full of shit and we'll give you one guess as to who we think that person is.

Ethics Investigator Rules Against Palin [Anchorage Daily News]

What better way for two beleaguered entities to divert attention away all of their imbecilic misdeeds than by coming together to form an odd coupling? Hey, it works for celebrities!

But seriously, Palin's piece for the Post on "Cap-and-Trade," an issue we, nor anyone else it seems, have any true understanding of, beyond the fact that it's something hated by the energy conglomerates that Obama says will help save the earth from environmental destruction, which naturally leads us to lean toward being in favor of it.

The whole piece reads like it was written by Sarah Palin pulling quotes from a brochure sent to her by an energy lobbyist. The sentences and paragraphs are short, filled with vague generalities and conservative buzzwords and catchphrases without providing a shred of evidence to support her central assertion, which is that Obama's energy plan will wreck the American economy. The only thing that comes close to resembling any form of "evidence" is her noting that the energy bill includes money to fund the re-training of energy industry employees who lose their jobs because of the plan.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

Yep. That's it. Everything else is just Sarah being Sarah.

Take Palin's closing flurry for example, which we just love because she manages to work in references to God, Alaska, the need to drill for oil in Alaska's nature preserves, the prospect of having to depend on commies and terrorists for oil, while also managing to mock Obama's 2008 campaign slogan:

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.

Pity the poor Washington Post copy editor who had the misfortune of having this thing recently land on their desk. That person probably hates their job right now, perhaps so much that they'd be willing to forward us the unedited version of the piece. Just a thought.

The 'Cap and Tax' Dead End [Washington Post]
Pic via

We phrased it as, "She Just Hates Governing." Today's Times story on the days leading to Sarah Palin's resignation suggests that "she just hates her life, and Alaska, and is not very good at governing" might more accurate.

So what happened is Sarah continued to be obsessed by every single petty attack against her, real or perceived, by any enemy, from any corner. When she talks about how she was unable to focus on helping Alaska because the governor's office was bogged down in frivolous ethics complaints, what she means is that she was personally consumed with everything bad said about her.

Like, here is one of those all-consuming ethics complaints that were hurting Alaska:

By all accounts, Ms. Palin became consumed with the complaints, no matter how small-bore - which many were - or where they came from.

When a local Democratic blogger accused her of becoming a "walking billboard" by wearing a jacket emblazoned with the logo of Arctic Cat, her husband's team sponsor at the Iron Dog snowmobile race, she issued a news release titled "Governor Comments on Latest Bogus Ethics Complaint."

"Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside," her statement read. A follow-up release was triumphantly titled "Ethics Complaint on Governor's Apparel Dismissed."

So, yes, Palin was fixated on attacking local bloggers, on responding to everything Levi Johnston said and did, and on taking on a late-night comedian for making a dumb joke. The Republican Governors Association tried to send an aide up to help her out, and party bigwigs tried to help her set up a PAC and a legal defense fund, and meanwhile the Alaska legislature just wanted her to govern, and Palin could not really handle all of those things, at once, and so she quit. But not before she randomly fired someone who annoyed her, again, because that is her style.

Dr. Butler said he resigned his post in June in part because the administration asked one of his highly regarded division heads, the state public health director, Beverly Wooley, to resign. "I felt that it was not a good time to be downsizing," said Dr. Butler, who is now working on a swine flu vaccination at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Butler said the governor's office apparently deemed Ms. Wooley insufficiently supportive of the parental consent bill backed by Ms. Palin.

Ms. Leighow would only say, inexplicably, that Ms. Wooley had been terminated by the health department, not the governor.

At least we can be confident that, while Sarah Palin has quit politics, she will never quit being a petty, thin-skinned liar, surrounded by sycophantic enablers.

And she will certainly not disappear from the public eye as long as Levi Johnston remains free, and on television!

And we are pretty sure we will continue to hear even more from Levi, in the coming weeks!

[Photo: Runner's World]

Mickey Kaus offered 14 theories for Palin's resignation, many of which are now kinda redundant and a bit stale. They can be whittled down to six.

Crime! This is the "theory" that Sarah Palin will sue us for mentioning, so we'll just say that there is no evidence at all that she embezzled anything, from anyone. Or, at least, there is no evidence that she is under federal investigation for embezzlement. So maybe not this one! But...

Some other terrible political thing Like maybe some new and more exciting ethics issue is coming down the pipeline? Maybe something is rotten with the Alaska state finances? But why would one more small-potatoes scandal end her heroic governing adventure?

Sex! Maybe Todd let Greta Van Susteren "handle" him, at the WHCD? Maybe Bristol got knocked up by A-Rod? Maybe Sarah slept with Greta Van Susteren? There are, as far as we know, no new rumors along these lines. Just idle fantasies.

Money Now we enter the realm of "likely but boring." Sarah Palin can make a lot more money writing books and giving speeches and maybe even hosting a TV show of some kind (can you imagine?) as a private citizen than she can as the Governor of Alaska. She did mention legal bills in her rambly speech, though the woman raises a million bucks from crazies every time she stutters, so how bad could things be?

She Just Hates Governing Yeah, has she ever demonstrated any aptitude for the actual business of governing? We realize that's a lot to ask of any leading light of the Republican party these days, but still. Alaska's running out of money, the legislature hates her, and none of that shit is as much fun as appearing on TV to complain about how everyone on TV is unfair to you all the time.

She Is Crazy Maybe the incoherent reasons she gave for quitting—to win the game, for the team—represent her actual thought process? Maybe she decided not to run for reelection, in order to position herself for 2012, and then she was like "you know what, if not running for reelection is how I get ready to be President, quitting altogether right now will have to make me even more ready."

Special bonus non-reason:

She Is Quitting Politics to Focus On Being a Private Citizen and Raising Her Children in Peace Yeah this one is the K-Lo fantasy, in which she's not a relentless ambitious career pol who uses her kids as props when that's convenient and decries their exploitation when anyone else mentions them.

Palin announced at a "hastily convened" press conference earlier today that she will resign and transfer power to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell at the end of the month. She didn't take any questions, or field any inquiries about her future plans. Common speculation has been that she's gonna make a run for the presidency in 2012.

Meanwhile: what's with the sudden press conference that has her surrounded by family? That's typically more indicative of a motion of support, less one of a political maneuver/preparation. Does someone have something on Palin that's going to come out in the following days? Was the Vanity Fair piece the last straw for her and/or her family? Or is this just a very, very preemptive move for the currently unannounced 2012 campaign? Some kind of analysis by lots of people who talk a lot to come, and more theories like that abound. God willing, she'll just embark on a TV career and sort out the marital disquiet of Gary Coleman.

You just knew this was coming, right? Sooner or later you just knew that the sweet and hopelessly ignorant kid from the Alaskan tundra who just wanted to float aimlessly through life hunting, fishing, playing hockey and banging chicks, would have his life destroyed by the sudden fame that came with having knocked up the daughter of the most ridiculous American public figure in the history of ridiculous American public figures. So very sad.

Renata Espinosa of The Daily Beast went shopping recently with Levi and his newly hired manager/bodyguard, an Anchorage-based lawyer, in Los Angeles, where they were "fielding pitches" for acting and reality show gigs or something.

Besides acting as Levi's handler, Tank is his personal Tim Gunn and Henry Higgins all in one, instructing him on the subtleties of wearing a fedora and reminding him to be open-minded about the different types of people he might encounter. Tank is the ultimate 21st-century version of an American father: multicultural and media-savvy.

Like the time Levi appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, with his mother and sister, and had to get his hair and makeup done, Tank had to remind Levi to relax.

"That was the worst," Levi tells me. "I had some dude singing to me, the whole time. He was real happy. Calling me ‘baby' and all that. I kept my mouth shut."

"I told him, you're going to meet all different types of people," interjects Tank. "Don't overreact. Nobody's going to hurt you. You gotta be accepting of all different types of people. You're talking about dealing with Hollywood? You're going to really meet some strange people."

To help Levi morph into the epic tool he needs to become if he has any hope of making it in Hollywood, Tank came up with the "Ricky Hollywood" idea.

Just so you're clear, when Levi Johnston is in L.A. with Tank and running around shopping with a reporter, trying on sequined jackets and pink fedoras and wearing bedazzled T-shirts that say "Go Girl" on them, that's not Levi you're seeing.

"What we did was, we came up with an alter ego, Ricky Hollywood," explains Tank. "Ricky Hollywood would iron his shirt." Levi looks at Tank and raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, right!" he says. "OK, well, I'd iron it. He doesn't know how to iron."

"We're not going to find my style out here," says Levi rather contentiously.

"Oh, yes, we will," says Tank. "We're going to find Ricky's style!"

No!!!! Just let Levi be Levi dammit and wear his jeans and t-shirts and baseball caps! He's been through enough—Leave him alone!

When asked by Espinosa about the Palin/Letterman controversy, Levi said that he didn't "think that David was trying to advocate any sexual misconduct of any nature."

You see—Levi actually gets it and is probably the only normal player in the whole Palin clown show. Leave him alone!

Shopping With Levi Johnston [Daily Beast]

Bristol appeared on Good Morning America to polish her scarlet letter and to explain, at the behest of whomever, that while abstinence did not work for her, because, you know, she wanted to have sex with Levi Johnston (and who wouldn't!), it is the only option for you and your child. If she had to do it all over again, what would she do? Not do it all over again. She would wait ten years to have sex. Or, she'd wait ten years to have baby Tripp, but she doesn't ever mention those crazy "condom" or "birth control" options so we're forced to conclude that she thinks she'd hold off on doing it until she was almost 30.

Bristol is the "Teen Ambassador" for some group that plans to prevent teen pregnancy by reminding them that having a baby isn't really so bad, you get to have sex and lots of attention and you get to be on TV and your parents will love and support you. The group, "Candie's Foundation," at least mentions contraception on its website, but on the whole they seem to be trying the same fetishization of virginity and motherhood thing that has worked so well over the last decade. Shouldn't the ambassador for preventing teen pregnancy be either some girl who successfully made it through her teenage years without a baby or, alternatively, some poor pregnant girl from a broke-ass family who can't afford fucking diapers?

So the old Bristol's occasional lapses into reality-based statements—like, abstintence "is not realistic"—are mostly gone, replaced by the creepy, watchful presence of Todd Palin reminding her, and us, of the party line: wait!!!!

Meanwhile her old boyfriend Levi was on trashier, low-rent CBS to give his side of the story.

Watch CBS Videos Online

But at the same time, you know, abstinence is a great idea, but I also think that you need to enforce, you know, condoms and birth control and other things like that to have safe sex. I don't just think telling young kids, you can't have sex, it's just — it's not going to work. It's not realistic.

Look, when some dumb mook's method of waging a publicity war against his ex's family is to actually make the first reasonable, realistic, and responsible statement on teenage sex of this entire shitshow, well, it says something about America.

Yes, American Chopper is headed to Alaska to build a motorcycle for Alaska's 50th Anniversary, because why not celebrate the birthday of a state whose capital is not accessible by road with a custom motorcycle. What fun it is to cruise up and down the Wasilla strip, or maybe ride that sucker all the way out to the ferry terminal.

We have not been this excited for a politician's appearance on original TLC programming since Dennis Kucinich was on Little People, Big World.

According to "a pal of Levi's" who spoke to The National Enquirer Johnston is shopping a book about his relationship with Bristol Palin and her family, the Palins of Wasilla, who rule Alaska, a distant frigid socialist oil-state. He will write this book, according to Pal, to finance his battle for custody of young Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, his child with Palin.

Because, yes, a 19-year-old hockey-playing high school drop-out who just wants to go work in the damn oil fields obviously wants a long, drawn-out, expensive custody battle with the most powerful and vengeful family in Alaska so that he can raise his mistake on his own. Obviously.

Another reason this book will never happen:

A pal of Levi's told The ENQUIRER that the young father is eager to write the book to provide financial security for his son Tripp and himself, to set the record straight.

"If Levi could get a million bucks, it would be worth telling all he really knows." said the source.

Right. Who does he think he is, Miley Cyrus? Or some sort of Twittering wine jerk?

This whole mess began when candidate Palin roped Levi Johnston onto the stage at the Republican National Convention, and promised he and her daughter. by the obviously pregnant, would be married by the election. That never happened. And after Palin failed to become vice president and returned to Wasilla, Alaska, things went downhill fast for the young couple.

Johnston proclaims his devotion to his son Tripp and touches on the ongoing, pointless debate over whether his family is white trash — they are, but so are the Palins, and none of them less lovable for it. But the real issue are whether Sarah Palin, a crusader for family values, sanctioned Johnston's sleepovers at the Palin house. His sister Mercede says she didn't even get to see him during the two months that he lived there — a charge she first made on MySpace.

The Palin camp is accusing Johnston of seeking publicity. Pot, kettle, etc. But they may have a point. At the end of the interview, anchorlady Maggie Rodriguez reveals that Johnston hopes to find work as an actor or model — otherwise it's back to pursuing a career as an electrician. Levi, may we suggest modeling? Speaking audibly is considered a prerequisite for acting.

There's one lingering question to this family feud: How close were the Johnstons and the Palins before Sarah Palin became a national political figure. Palin's Deception, a blog dedicated to proving that Trig Palin is not Sarah Palin's baby, raises an interesting point with a photo of Sarah Palin and Mercede Johnston in the Palin's kitchen. Then there's the theory that Sherry Johnston, Levi's mom, who was busted in December for possession and distribution of oxycontin, was the dealer for Sarah's son Track, whose alleged drug problems were aired last September. What else went on between these upstanding citizens of Wasilla?

"Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship," says the statement from the Palin family rep, Meghan Stapleton.

Just a reminder: that is a statement from Sarah Palin's family's flack, not from someone with maybe a leg to stand on re. "flat-out lies" and "gross exaggeration" in the service of "a quest for fame, attention, and fortune."

So, yeah. Levi Johnston was just some regular dumb kid from in a shitty town, and then he knocked up his girlfriend, and because his girlfriend's mom was running for vice president as a family values conservative, he had to pretend he wanted to marry this girl, and he was dressed up in a monkey suit and paraded before the nation as an exemplar of traditional heartland values like "terrible life-altering accidents stemming from lack of proper sex education (and also, you know, being a dumb teenager— it happens, but usually you can do something about it unless national politics are involved)."

Then they lost the election, and because the Palins thought this Levi kid and his family were white trash, the sham marriage was (thank god) called off, quietly, and Levi was invited to go be on a TV show to talk about the whole thing, and on this TV show he said some reasonable things about how Sarah Palin probably knew he was fucking her daughter, because "Moms are pretty smart," and apparently that is a GROSS DISTORTION.

Hooray for this wonderful story of two star-crossed kids in love, right?

While there is no doubt in our mind that former Senator Stevens is genuinely felonious, the Feds, the FBI, and the Bush Justice Department so thoroughly fucked up the prosecution that we shouldn't be surprised at this late "exoneration."

• A prosecution witness recanted his testimony and later claimed he made up his testimony because of death threats made against him by his uncle Bill Allen, the oil company owner who gave Stevens all those gifts.
• Then an FBI agent involved in the wide-ranging Alaska corruption investigations came forward with allegations that the government investigation was marred with the exact same sort of hilarious bribery and favor-trading that makes up Alaska politics in general.
• The DOJ tried to relocate a witness that the defense subpoenaed in the middle of the trial, and then they forgot to redact the names of the people they wanted redacted in their own request to redact those names, because their investigation was apparently run by the DOJ's "Kindergarten Cops" division.
• Supposedly another FBI agent was sleeping with Bill Allen.
• Then the names of all the folks shamed in that FBI whistle-blower's statement were released, even though they didn't give consent.
• The judge held the prosecution in contempt for ignoring a court order.
• Then, in February, the Justice Department finally replaced the morons who'd been running the prosecution.
• But it was too late. Eric Holder admitted defeat and dropped the charges against Stevens.

So hey, if you were an elected official, 2000-2008 was basically your window to do any fucking thing you wanted because the Bush Justice Department was staffed by illiterate morons. Congratulations to Ted Stevens, the most innocent man in America!

Turns out that "per diem" she got for staying at her own damn house in Wasilla counts as "income"!

The governor's office wouldn't say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

"The amount of taxes owed is a private matter," Sharon Leighow, Palin's spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record."

Yes, it's a "private matter" because she's not gonna serve in Obama's cabinet.

Frankly a couple thousand bucks in back taxes is the least of Sarah Palin's problems. Her unwed teenage-mom daughter explained that abstinence is a fairy tale on national TV, the presidential campaign left her a nervous wreck with only a shred of her former entirely unjustified self-confidence, and people keep telling her to run for president in 2012.

But the biggest problem? Now she might have to "govern" her tiny little socialist oil state for real, 'cuz the price of oil is falling! So Alaska will run out of oil and money in about two years, just in time for Sarah to begin her awesome presidential campaign for real.