Why Levi Johnston Matters
The magazine Vanity Fair opted to open up the fall season featuring another groundbreaking interview with Levi Johnston, a young man whose previous claims to fame included a decisive slap shot in hockey, the ability to navigate a snow machine over rough terrain, and sufficient spermatozoa to impregnate the daughter of a vice presidential candidate. The punditocracy and their associated acolytes across the web immediately fell into predictable patterns of applause and outrage.
You may recall that during the Battle of Ought Eight, Levi was held up — albeit somewhat reluctantly — as a hero of traditional American values. Rather than traipsing off to the nearest abortion clinic, he was going to marry the young woman who found herself in a family way by accident. It was the essence of bootstrap conservatism and personal responsibility, serving as a mark of credit to both the Palin and Johnston families.
What a difference a year makes! With dreams of ceremonies — both inaugural and nuptial — crumbled into dust, Levi has shouldered a new mantle as right-wing whipping boy. He is scorned as a habitual liar, amoral, and a scumbag. But why does the opinion of this young man carry any cache in the political arena?
To answer this question we need look no further than his forebears among the children of famous politicos and other previously unknown peasants who suddenly found themselves with a soapbox far more massive than their personal achievements would otherwise merit. In each case, their weight and popularity are measured by the audience they bring and the partisan spin of their opinions.
Conservatives generally demonstrate a nearly equal glee in their acerbic treatment of Meghan McCain, daughter of the Arizona senator who challenged Barack Obama in 2008. Her youth, her blond mane, and the less than articulate phrases which occasionally escape her lips and pen have been frequent targets of attack. She has never held elected office or personally delivered a project of value to society at large. Why should we listen to this brainless space cadet and her prattling about a larger tent for the GOP?
And yet the same crowds tossing stones at these targets are often staunch and vocal supporters of Liz Cheney, going so far as push for her own run for office. (This is a woman I frequently refer to as Loud Mouth Liz for her unequaled ability to shut down any round table discussion before a speaker with an opposing opinion can get eleven words out of their mouth.) While many of you are leaping to the defense of her bona fides, I would remind you that her two significant public service positions were obtained when her considerably more accomplished father was House minority whip and secretary of defense under George H. W. Bush and then vice president under George W. Bush. She is, in short, the definition of “coat tails” personified.
“Levi has shouldered a new mantle as right-wing whipping boy.”
“Levi has shouldered a new mantle as right-wing whipping boy.” Ok. I guess.
I’ve thought he was irrelevant from the beginning although, obviously, he was a ripe tomato for someone to pick up and throw.
I didn’t watch the Michael Jackson funeral or the Ted Kennedy Worship Service either, so maybe I’m just not cool enough to care about stupid people who live to be noticed.
You got Liz Cheney dead wrong; she actually held a foreign policy job in Bush’s administration. And I believe that the usual format for these MSM “roundtables” is 4-5 people shouting over each other with no single topic discussed in proper depth.
Beyond that, I’m not sure who this “we” is who elevated all the other minor players. We hapless audience members, or the MSM, which has drawn up a lesson plan and assigned our topics for discussion?
Erm, I don’t really see a whole lot of conservatives whipping out Levi’s name at every opportunity. That seems more like an “Us Magazine” and other tabloids that are the foremost publications of the left, as well as the tabloid journalism that passes for television news. Amazingly, even now the Sarah Palin has stepped away from public office and isn’t running for anything, folks on the left *still* are trying to do anything to hurt her, usually through her family, including using this gormless teen. It’s a real shame, but I hope someday that real journalism will make a comeback.
Oh boy, another cowbell Jazz piece for our Friday discussion & enjoyment. Quizz ?, is Jazz aka AllahPundit or aka Naomi Wolf?
Mr. Shaw has taken too much liberty with his casual and frequent use of ‘we’ in this article.
Speak for yourself, Mr. Shaw. Don’t use the rest of us to rationalize your folly.
The MSM does the elevating, the “public” does the maintaining. The Left and the Right, on average, will take what they can get in order to score points against the other side. It’s a proven fact. The late comedian George Carlin famously said that “the public sucks”. We aren’t innocents in the “playing pawns” game. Now some of us are much more guilty than others by far.
Personally, I’m off the Sarah Palin “let’s see what she is doing” wagon right now. Now if she’s going to run for public office, talk to me. In fact, I would dearly love for her to run in 2012 for GOP presidential nod for purely entertainment reasons. The amount of venom she would get would positively make history.
There is no point to this drivel from Mr. Shaw, other than
liberal whining about “we only have ourselves to blame.”
Yeah, that, and $1.85 will get ya a cup of Joe at Starbucks.
The confused, aimless prattling of this article is just more proof why RINOs have no place in leadership (especially in the Republican Party…go the Democrats, please!)…until they get their thoughts straightened out.
What you talking, “we”?
Speaking as a father, I would be glad that the relationship between my daughter and this irresponsible punk is over. I know I would have been a bit less friendly toward him than Mr. Palin was, while the relationship existed. And I would have probably beat him like a bass drum the FIRST time he discussed any private family matters with the press.
Its probably a good thing that Levi Johnson has left Alaska, for Levi Johnson. I would say his future is bleak if he doesn’t shut up and stay in the lower 48.
I found a typo in your article. The quote should read, “…another windbreaking interview with Levi Johnston…”
You’re welcome.
I’m not sure who the “we” is here either. Nor who Jazz Shaw might be to lecture “us.”
He’s as relevant as People magazine, and appeals to an audience of the same intellect.
Absent confirming evidence otherwise, I’ll put this on the fiction shelf, next to the Hillary Pregnant with Martian Baby issue of the National Enquirer. Stay classy, Levi. I’m sure there’s someone out there worthy of your dignity and loyalty.
Oh c’mon now. The Republicans created an image and gave this kid a taste of the limelight. You can’t just drop him now. All he wanted was to be, as he put it in his own words: “A redneck that wants to drink beer and play hockey.” Now he can be something else, another manufactured accidental celebrity. A punk, but probably an honest punk.
14. Middleman: “Oh c’mon now. The Republicans created an image and gave this kid a taste of the limelight. You can’t just drop him now. All he wanted was to be, as he put it in his own words: “A redneck that wants to drink beer and play hockey.” Now he can be something else, another manufactured accidental celebrity. A punk, but probably an honest punk.”
Yeah seriously, out of all the people who were directly or tangentially related to the 2008 McCain/Palin Campaign, I think Levi Johnson stands out as the only one who was definitively honest about who he was and what he believed.
Jazz is a heretical former RINO. I guess that means he’s now a darling of the Manhattan scene or at least his little corner of it. Not quite as dumb and lacking as self awareness as Ms. McCain but trying hard.
That Dale identifies Levi Johnson as the last honest man in the McCain/Palin campaign reaches the heights of absurdity.
The boy blunder is a blip on the radar screen.
Buh bye.
The Cindy Sheehan of the right? Although I don’t recall as much media cheerleading (even on the right) for him.
Levi Johnston’s lawyer is Rex Butler, a Democratic Party operative. Rex Butler supported Jesse Jackson for president and also Barack Obama. He repeatedly tried to paint Palin as a racist. Levi’s “agent” is another race hustling thug named Tank Jones, a private detective from Anchorage who weighs about 500 pounds.
Neither one of these guys works for free. both of them are African-American.
I’d like to know who’s bankrolling Levi Johnston.
This is how it is. When he was with Bristol and in good standing with the Palins, he was mocked and ridiculed along with all of the Palins.
Once Levi and the Palins cut ties and Levi had nasty things to say about Gov. Palin, he became a darling to the likes of The Early Show, The Today Show, Vanity Fair mag, Larry King Live, etc.
Levi knows the M.O. of these gutter journalists and he’s telling them what they want to hear whether it’s true or not.
Clearly Levi whatshisname serves a very useful purpose: He gives people like Jazz Shaw something to write about, while the grownups can tend to things that, like, matter.
“We” ?
Yep, take for example, the rightwing psychos at FreeRepublic…search for Levi and you’ll find dozens of threads and hundreds of posts excoriating him. Well, this year, anyway…in the Fall of 2008 you’d find as many exclaiming what a gem the lad is(was).
I am getting really sick and tired of this “we” stuff. I cannot speak for “we” and neither can you. You can talk about our society, our culture, or our pop culture but when you accuse me of something while hiding behind a “we,” then you go too far. I have done none of the things you suggested in the article. In fact, I fight against them everyday as I teach, research, and write. Lumping everybody together in a corporate village is a tactic of the left to avoid personal responsibity and I do not accept it as a basic premise.
As to Levi Johnston, I’ll be direct. In an early era, he would have been horsewhipped or shot for a cad. He seduced a young woman, got her pregnant, and then failed to act a man and take responsiblity. The Palins never excused the behavior but sought to do the best they coud with it. It is neither their fault nor mine, that Levi proved to be a gutless wonder. The fact that the Left will use him to attack his betters is damning commentary on them, not on conservatives. We all make mistakes and we all face trials. The test of true character is how you handle those mistakes and face the trials. Personally, with all the crude things said about Bristol by men on the cable shows, I am tempted to punch a few saps if I ever see them in person.
As to Meghan and Liz, I have never given Meghan much thought because obviously she hasn’t. She is being used by the media to attack conservatives just like her father was used. Liz, I like. I agree with most of what she says and she articulates it well. I have no problem with assertive women no with a conservative who dominates a panel against liberals. For too long liberals have stacked the deck on these talk shows and either shouted down or out-numbered their conservative opponents. Usually the conservative sits their like an intimidated first graded with a hand politely in the air while saying “excuse me” in the most feminine voice possible. We need people who will crack a few heads on these things and shut down those pompous leftist windbags. So, go Liz.
Now, that I have vented my speen, I feel better.
Yes it was an error to try to paper over Levi’s many deficienciees as a human being, just as the democrats tried to elevate Cindy Sheehan to pedestal status.
But the GOP leaves Sheehan where she deserves to be.
Meanwhile democrats with no decency and taste flaunt Levi’s appallingly tasteless observations in a manner that cheapens politics and people. I doubt that decent democrats are feeling very happy about the slime on their side today. Joe the Plumber investigated and harassed; Levi given a national forum to cheapen life in general. Impressive.
I do not watch the left-wing media (NBC, ABC, CBS, MSDNC, CNN, PBS,etc) so I have no idea what this clown has said since the election. But it is rather obvious, he is the Dem’s version of Paula Jones.
To steveg @25: If my memory is correct, Paula Jones claimed to be a victim of sexual harassment and rape by the President of the United States. Levi just provides gossip on the Palin family. I don’t see any direct comparison there.
Sheehan is a nut and everyone eventually dumped her when they realized just how batty she is. Jones was a victim.
Levi was a young punk, from a punk family, that the McCain/Palin spin doctors tried to groom as part of a their ploy to dupe the American public into thinking the Palins were folksy family-focused people. Yet again the standards couldn’t be upheld and Levi is ready to reveal all. Maybe if Republicans stopped trying to pass off people as having teflon moral codes, then perhaps so much focus wouldn’t be paid to them.
I don’t even know where to begin with the idiocy of this article. Johnston was applauded for his actions. Conservatives largely believe in meritocracy, and his noble actions of living up to his responsibilities were recognizable. However, the MOMENT he decides that instead he’s going to pose for magazines, possibly pose nude (if the money is right), and trash his child’s grandmother (& presumably primary source of income), and conservatives are supposed to think the SAME of him?!?
And to even compare the credentials of Megan McCain & Liz Cheney is so patently absurd, that this pseudo-journalist can’t help but show their true idiotic colors.
It’s more like this from the moron author’s point of view, “Levi is faithful, Levi is trying to get famous off his former soon to be mother in law…either way, Palin’s evil!”
d-bag
I don’t even know where to begin with the idiocy of this article. Johnston was applauded for his actions. Conservatives largely believe in meritocracy, and his noble actions of living up to his responsibilities were recognizable. However, the MOMENT he decides that instead he’s going to pose for magazines, possibly pose nude (if the money is right), and trash his child’s grandmother (& presumably primary source of income), and conservatives are supposed to think the SAME of him?!?
And to even compare the credentials of Megan McCain & Liz Cheney is so patently absurd, that this pseudo-journalist can’t help but show their true colors & fervently raging bias.
It’s more like this from the author’s point of view, “Levi is faithful, Levi is trying to get famous off his former soon to be mother in law…either way, Palin’s evil!”
So this pseudo-journalist believes the following: you have a kid who decides to wed the mother of his child & live up to his responsibilities. Yet the MOMENT we find he is not doing this any longer, and instead is trashing his child’s grandmother(the primary source of both HIS & the child’s income, presumably) in magazines and offering to pose nude for money…. and conservatives are expected to think the same of him?!?
That’s as brilliant an assesment as one that believe that Liz Cheney & Meghan McCain are comparable in any imaginable way!
How about this? Whether Levi stayed with Bristol or decided to trash her family in papers…this author still believes Palin is evil. Would that be closer to the truth? I think so.
So this pseudo-journalist believes the following: you have a kid who decides to wed the mother of his child & live up to his responsibilities. Yet the MOMENT we find he is not doing this any longer, and instead is trashing his child’s grandmother(the primary source of both HIS & the child’s income, presumably) in magazines and offering to pose nude for money…. and conservatives are expected to think the same of him?!?
That’s as brilliant an assesment as one that believe that Liz Cheney & Meghan McCain are comparable in any imaginable way!
How about this? Whether Levi stayed with Bristol or decided to trash her family in papers…this author still believes Palin is evil.
Levi Johnston is lowest of the low, not dissimilar to a pile of cow dung, just dropped, still steaming. To get this young girl pregnant, take the national stage with the Palin family, then abandon her & spill his guts to the insatiable-for-dirt-on-a-Republican-candidate media, he is scum amongst scum. Other scum say “we don’t even want this nitwit around us.” He is so vile, he gives regular scum a bad name.
I wouldn’t blame Todd Palin one bit for anything he does to this low-life, sorry excuse for a sperm bank. One has to wonder, why has the media dropped its interest in John Edwards’ love child?
Yes, because journalists believed Johnston was a credible fount of knowledge at the RNC or prior to ANY point before he started bashing his child’s grandmother.
What hypocrisy. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the reason these two didn’t get married was because people were trying to destroy Bristol and Levi to harm Sarah? You scum, and you know who you are, think nothing of turning a baby into a prop to destroy a family with. There’s only so much a person can take.
When Levi and bristol were together, hey, don’t be attacking Levi. he’s just a good-hearted, hard-working frontier boy trying to do his best by his new family. Now that he’s not with Bristol, he’s the lowest of the low, a scumbag. In the end he’s exactly like Sarah Palin, an ersatz celebrity trying to cash in before America wises up. I hope he dishes everything about the Palins.
PS: Carrie Prejean “vaulted to the heights of GOP celebrity.” I knew the Republican standards were low, especially when it comes to “heroes” but Carrie Prejean? Really? OK.
L Johnston made his youthful mistakes like many others. What’s pathetic is the behavior of Palin, we knew she was a pinhead all along.
Jazz Shaw
Perhaps you are unaware of the extent to which ‘ricky hollywoods’ will go just to get that idolized membership into the celebrity VIP club; Meagan McCain is perfect example of a ‘ricky hollywood’, she’ll gleefully drown herself in a toxic sewer just to maintain presence among her idols.
This Levi Johnston character spent an hour in the celebrity VIP room and now, by every means necessary, he is determined to receive a lifetime membership.
Jazz Shaw, people who need celebrity worship are desperate for attention-Dr Drew Pinsky deals with this narcissism whenever he is dealing with self-serving, narcissistic Hollywood celebrity drug addicts.
Levi Johnston is suffering from a serious mental disease and he is trying to relieve his sickness by jumping in the celebrity sewer.
Perhaps instead you may want to understand the entertainment world in general, it is a world full of desperation, destruction, demolition, cruelty and disease hidden by an illusion of grandeur preened by frauds.
The Country Club Republicans again make icons of Cheney’s and MacCain’s daughters they way they did of this cad (aren’t JUST the right words really great?).
They’ll be equally screwed by the girls.
Why can’t the CCRepubs ever find a messiah? ‘Cause every time they have, they screwed him blind (Barry Goldwater, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Newt …)
Side note: Why are all the politico’s daughters (Bill’s included) always piggies? And why, oh why!, would anyone care WTF they ever think?
Levi Johnston is a grim and ominous reminder of all that might have been….
“President Gidget von Braun”
Can you even imagine?
“The America that I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on subjective judgment, of their “level of productivity in society”, whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Sarah Palin
from her Fascism….I mean, “Facebook” page.
It’s amazing. That an imbecile like this failed ex-governor can mention something as idiotic as “Death Panels” and in the next instance it is a serious part of the national dialogue. Why are the American people so susceptible to such blatant propaganda? I have a theory if you’re interested in hearing it:
We’re idiots.
I don’t know about you, but I’m loving the Sarah Palin/Levi Johnson saga/soap opera. And to think that only one year ago, the geniuses on the Republican National Committee deemed her to be the best choice to be “a seventy-two-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency”.
Are you surprised that the “party of Lincoln” is imploding? You shouldn’t be. You really shouldn’t.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan, Goshen, NY
Wow, my comment got deleted and all the liberal trolls remain. What’s with all that Jazz?
I see both sides of the river on this one. Levi should not be biting the hand that feeds him, its not right. But Sarah should never have entered into the wilderness of big time, or should I say, show time politics..the Palins just dont have the pedigree. However, she now has the name, and with a bit of worldly education, could make a (ted k. type) good republican senator someday. Good luck to all of em.
Tom Degan, Goshen, NY of the “We’re idiots” brigade.
Yes You Are!
This is what happens when mommy insists that the doctor suck out their own baby’s brain
“just dont have the pedigree”
By any Harvard standard neither do you; check your grammar first before judging pedigree.
That aside; if Harvard is the pedigree by which all pedigrees are measured then please explain why Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Larry Summers among so many Ivy-league are completely void of WISDOM?
It is one thing to wave around the intellectual degree as a measure of pedigree, however without wisdom the intellect is as worthless as the degree.
Levi has contradicted himself so many times and in so many venues, that it’s not even funny. But he serves as a club against Palin, who’s been one of the most effective fighters against
Obama’s policies. His willingness to be used by
affiliates of the Democrats like Tank and Rex,
marks him down, just like Megan gets point for
disparaging her father’s parties faction. Liz Cheney, by contrast having an understanding and support of important policies being discarded as we speak doesn’t get the same support from all the ‘right people’ The ones who vouched for Obama and Van Jones
Jazz Shaw thinks that because he has breathed for many, many decades, people should assume that he has something interesting to say.
But he makes Meghan McCain look intelligent.
He’s PJ Media’s affirmative action hire for worthless RINOs.
To Pelaut @ 38: Conservative need no political messiah. Only weak minded liberals who lazily buy into a cult of personality need a political messiah. Christian conservatives especially realize that their is not such thing as a politcal messiah. All men and women are fallen. All will sin and all are potentially corruptible. It is sheer madness to put one’s faith in a mere human.
39. Tom Degan:
“Why are the American people so susceptible to such blatant propaganda? I have a theory if you’re interested in hearing it:
We’re idiots.”
Bill Maher agrees with you and explains it very clearly. I agree with you both. Sad but true.
Except for (42. syn), he’s the genius of the ignoramus.
@44 narco So easy to spout lies about Levi, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have any facts to back up your claim that he’s contradicted himself, would you? Please remember, the voices in your head don’t count.
Regarding Levi contradicting himself, here’s one article and it links to others. Before you dismiss it out of hand, this article takes quotes Levi himself said… and ones he said later which contradict the first.
Here you go:
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2009/09/levi-liar.html
Jazz,
I really don’t think it’s fair to use “we” so often. Maybe you laughed at and followed the tabloid politicians, but I never did. So, no, Levi is not my problem.