Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp, premiering Tuesday, June 19, at 10pm ET/PT with back-to-back episodes. Two new episodes will subsequently air every Tuesday, showcasing Bristol’s journey growing into womanhood with her young son, Tripp.
With never-before-granted access to Bristol’s real-life experiences, the show follows her everyday life as a single mother living under intense media scrutiny that comes from her lineage as the daughter of former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
I want to see the episode where she’s out to dinner and Stacy McCain, now The World’s Most Interesting Blogger (mosquitos do not bite him, out of respect), saves her from being accosted by Levi Johnston.
McCain takes Johnston to task for being a standing insult to manhood of Obama-esque proportions. Johnston breaks down crying at the description of what McCain would do to him, were one of McCain’s daughters to receive such despicable treatment. Levi eventually requires hospitalization to recover from contusions suffered due to the impact of McCain’s verbal onslaught, and actually sends a thank-you note to Todd Palin for showing more mercy.
Hmmm. I seem to bear some animus toward Johnston.
Meanwhile, I did have a quick word with Stacy, sounded chipper. I haven’t the foggiest idea where he is. Start prepping your material for the 25th, Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day.
Oh, the wonderful Civility™ of liberals! Bristol Palin went to a cowboy-themed restaurant/bar in West Hollywood, where she rode a mechanical bull while a reality-show camera crew shot video. Some guy at the bar shouted: “Did you ride Levi like that? Your mother’s a whore!” And when someone asked him, “What was that about?” the dude replied, “Her mother’s a f–king whore. She’s the devil.” It got worse from there. The action begins at about the 1:40 mark:
Bristol was criticized for asking the heckler if he was gay: “Is it because you’re homosexual?” Even though it turns out her gaydar was accurate, apparently it’s considered “homophobic” to make an issue of someone’s sexual orientation after they call your mother a f–king whore. (The etiquette of Civility™ is kinda complicated.) The very gay heckler, a 47-year old consultant named Stephen Hanks, seems to be either a Daily Dish reader or a Joe McGinniss fan or both. Hanks told TMZ: “I just don’t like that family. . . . Kinda felt good to get it off my chest. . . . I’m very passionate about politics . . . And I’m passionate that these people are very dangerous. I acted upon my feelings and I would do that anytime, anywhere. . . . She comes from a home, in my opinion, where gays are made fun of, where blacks are probably made fun of. . . . They’re trash. . . . She’s a racist homophobe in my opinion.”
When asked what he’d say to Bristol if given another chance, Hanks answered: “Your mother’s a media whore and a money-grubbing whore and a Dominionist who is evil and dangerous for this country — that’s what I’d say to her.”
UPDATE: Thanks to Chris Jefferson, Brent Mohrman, and others on Twitter for pointing out that Stephen Hanks (a) appears to be a Trig Truther who (b) had a “SickOfPalin” Twitter account he’s since deleted, and is (c) like all gay liberals, a huge fan of Levi Johnston:
UPDATE II: Although Stephen Hanks deleted his “SickOfPalin” Twitter account, he left an associated photo account online, so you can see how he pushed Trig Truther smears.
UPDATE III: Congratulations to the online sleuths who have confirmed that Palin-hater Stephen Hanks is the proprietor of Stephen Hanks Management, a Hollywood agency whose clients include actor Michael Vartan:
stephen hanks [sickofpalin]
I’m sitting in the dressing room at #thelateshow with my client Michael Vartan
What you see here is the sloppy recklessness of liberals: Hanks included his name on his “SickOfPalin” Twitter account and used that account to Tweet about his professional client, so as to dragoon the client into the service of Hanks’s anti-Palin politics.
Hanks called into “TMZ Live” and said he was “ashamed,” evidently having realized how atrocious his behavior was: “Am I ashamed of myself today, after watching ? Absolutely.” But then he doubled down on Palin-hating: “The sentiment remains the same. I think that they’re dangerous people, especially Sarah Palin.”
Notice during the “TMZ Live” segment how the host assumes that Bristol’s question to Hanks — “Is it because you’re a homosexual?” –is “homophobic,” which I think is a complete misunderstanding. Notice that Bristol says next, “And that’s why you don’t like my mom.”
Let’s understand that Stephen Hanks is not the first case of Palin Derangement Syndrome that Bristol has encountered, and that many of the most virulent Palin-haters (e.g., Andrew Sullivan) are gay. They hate Sarah Palin because they have convinced themselves that Palin is, as Hanks said, a “Dominionist” — a Christian theocrat — and therefore anti-gay. My belief is that Bristol wanted to have a conversation with Hanks to try to explain that his hatred is an irrational reaction to a false stereotype of her mother. And it is a false stereotype.
Prior to Sarah Palin’s elevation to the national stage in 2008, she was widely viewed in Alaska as a reform-oriented leader, admired for her courage in taking on the GOP Establishment and powerful special interests. She’s got a libertarian streak a mile wide, and the attempt to depict her as a pawn of the Religious Right must be seen for what it is: A political propaganda campaign of the Democratic Party, aimed at exploiting fear.
Palin is indeed a devout Christian, but the image of her as some kind of demented theocrat apparently originated with John Stein, the incumbent whom she defeated to become mayor of Wasilla in 1996. During that campaign, Stein claimed he was the target of anti-Semitic rumors (he’s not Jewish, but is in fact a Lutheran of German ancestry), and this claim has been woven into a distorted tapestry of mythology about Palin’s Religious Right politics. Stein and his liberal friends were among the original Palin-haters, and have been the source of all kinds of false allegations about Sarah Palin, including the discredited claim that Palin tried to ban books from the library in Wasilla.
Once you understand how this kind of stuff gets started, and understand the political and personal motivations of those who exaggerate such a demonized image of Palin, the vast distance between that image and the actual Sarah Palin becomes apparent. And I suspect Bristol Palin asked Stephen Hanks if he was gay as a prelude to trying to convince him that he has been deceived by these media distortions.
Perhaps Bristol wanted to make Hanks aware that there are many gay people — Tammy Bruce among them — who admire and support Governor Palin. But we’ll never know, because Stephen Hanks is so full of fear and sick hatred that it was impossible for him to have a civil conversation with Bristol.
Liberals: Hating Their Way to the Progressive Future!
Don’t know about you, but two days of blogging about Norwegian terror attacks exceeds my recommended dosage. It’s time to get get back to blogging about real news.
And by “real news,” of course I mean teen sex scandals.
You might have thought this morning’s post about Rep. David Wu (D-Oregon) would have filled the teen sex scandal news quota. However, as everyone knows, it’s not an actual scandal for a teenager to be sexually assaulted by a congressman if (a) he’s a Democrat and (b) she’s the daughter of a major campaign contributor.
So that’s not exactly what we call “news.” Dog bites man.
Sex is always scandalous, however, when it involves a Republican, which is why Bristol Palin went on the “Dr. Drew” show to talk about losing her virginity to Levi Johnston while drunk on wine coolers:
“Instead of waking up in his arms, I awakened in the cold tent, alone. . . . That was the first of many bad decisions to come.”
Where I come from, the only reason any young fellow ever buys wine coolers is if he’s trying to have sex with a teenage girl. It’s almost like a redneck cultural tradition, a rite of passage or something.
So, once again: Dog bites man. Not exactly “news.”
Moving on, then, we find Hollywood teen bride Courtney Stodden and her 51-year-old husband appearing on the “Father Albert Show,” and the host asks her about her future plans:
Father Albert: “College? Continuing education?” Courtney: “He’s my college! He’s my acting coach! I have this built-in acting coach right here. How many girls . . . that’s their dream, y’know? And I fell in love with my dream!”
Maybe Glenn Reynolds would consider this as Courtney helping fight the “higher education bubble.” Or maybe not.
“So we’re going to go ahead and file this into the ‘Are You Kidding Me?’ category. . . . I’m not one for objecting, generally speaking, to age gaps in marriage. You could fall in love with someone who’s 15 or 20 years younger than you. My objection comes with the age of one of the parties: Sixteen years old — 16!”
OK, ma’am. Objection registered. But let’s ask a hypothetical question: Suppose that your daughter was determined to have sex at age 16. Given the choice, would you rather her first time be . . .
A. Drunk on wine coolers in a pup tent with Levi Johnston, or
B. On her wedding night, in a luxury hotel suite, with her movie star husband.
Just a hypothetical, but if you want my advice, I’d say if you don’t want your 16-year-old daughters having sex, keep them away from movie stars, Democratic congressmen and teenage boys with wine coolers.
Movie stars and Democratic congressmen are kind of rare.
But those teenage boys with wine coolers? They’re everywhere.
Permit me further to share this tip about the practice of journalism: Never report old news as if you were breaking an exclusive.
A fact that was first announced in a press release 10 weeks ago is not news, and trying to pretend that it is news only makes you look stupid. A more accurate headline would have been:
Which isn’t how they headlined it, because that wouldn’t permit Mediaite.com to pretend they’d scored The Big Scoop, when all they did was write a story about a cable TV interview and put their own logo on a video that has been on FoxNews.com since yesterday afternoon:
What I did not do on May 27 was to pretend that the (then) two-week-old announcement of Bristol’s reality-show deal was news. And yet you may rest assured that Mediaite.com’s deceptively-headlined story will be linked at various conservative blogs because it evidently never occurs to anyone to check the facts.
The one where Scarlett O’Hara says of India Wilkes, “Why, if she thought anybody would take after her, she’d walk down the street naked.”
Mercede Johnston is following in her brother’s footsteps and taking it all off for the cameras.
Two years after Levi Johnston bared his bum for Playgirl, his 18-year-old sister will be featured in a four-page nude pictorial in Playboy’s September issue, a magazine spokesperson confirms to Us Weekly. . . .
Mercede has a blog, which might as well be called “I Really, Really Hate Bristol Palin and You Should, Too.” That’s all she ever writes about.
If Sarah Palin decides to run for president, the biggest downside is that Mercede might get a 16th minute of . . . well, it’s not quite “fame,” is it?
Unless you’re reminded that her brother Levi was Bristol Palin’s ex-boyfriend, your reaction to her name is, “Mercede Johnston? Who’s that? And why didn’t her mama know how to spell ‘Mercedes’?”
Kinda sucks when your name looks like a typo.
Guess we’ll see what the rest of her looks like soon enough.
“Both of our families gelled during Dancing with the Stars. Sarah would be in the audience cheering for Kyle, and we’d be in the audience rooting for Bristol. We all became close.”
Mama Massey adds, “The Palins are really funny, nice and genuinely warm to us.”
Isn’t that nice? And wouldn’t you think the rest of the media would be rushing to report this neat human-interest angle about the Palin family?
Levi Johnston recently unveiled the cover of his book, Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs, slated for release on September 27th, 2011. This tell-all tripe details how the opportunist was “exploited” by the Palin family. . . .
The narcissist impregnated Bristol Palin, later became a father to their child Tripp, and left her to raise the boy alone. After his failed relationship with Bristol Palin, Johnston went on an anti-Palin bashing spree, hung out with crass comedian Kathy Griffin, and shamelessly posed nude for PlayGirl magazine. Now, he is living off of his notorious “achievements”. Not exactly the venerable route for an American male. . . .
Notice that Levi’s victimhood pose is the entire selling point of his book. I guess the publishers rejected Dude, I Banged the Governor’s Daughter and Cashed in for Undeserved Notoriety as a title.
She is one of the foremost conservative activists at UC-San Diego, having interned with Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch Center in Summer 2010. Additionally, she works on The Rick Amato Show in San Diego (KCBQ 1170AM) as the Executive Assistant and is the Director of College Outreach for Eagle Forum of San Diego.
Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)
As I say, I’ve met Todd Palin, and I’d love to see one of these clowns say some crap like that to his face.
The first rule of civility for the left is this, any statement no matter how vile or misogynistic that is directed against the Palin family is OK.
Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in all the years of Bush Derangement Syndrome did the Left unload as much concentrated hate as they’ve piled onto Sarah Palin since August 2008.
UPDATE II: There were many other things I’d intended to blog about this morning, but Ken Layne’s reaction is just so astonishing that I feel the need to extend this post. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection quotes Layne:
I wouldn’t parade my children around in the media. What kind of mother does that? . . . Trig is cool with us. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is a grave danger to America.
And it is Palin’s “grave danger” that, in Layne’s demented mind, justifies the no-holds-barred anti-Palin attacks.
Let me address this from a couple of different angles. I have been known, from time to time, to make intemperate or ill-advised remarks, including jokes of questionable taste. When I loathe somebody, I don’t bother to disguise my loathing, and so I would be a hypocrite if I posed as having been a model of civility toward, inter alia, Meghan McCain.
However, Meghan has thrust herself into the public eye, tried to make herself a spokesperson for conservatism, and generally cashed in on her inherited importance, so she bought her own ticket to this dance, you see. I sure as hell don’t need a 20-something bubblehead lecturing me about political philosophy, so Meghan “Don’t You Know Who I Am?” McCain has arguably invited whatever insults I’ve thrown her way (which have been numerous, and ROTFLMAO funny, I might add).
So that’s one political child who has been “paraded around in the media.” What about Chelsea Clinton? I’ve met Chelsea, who is absolutely charming in person. Is there anyone who would deny that Chelsea was, in some sense, used as a campaign prop by her parents over the years? Indeed, aren’t there many observers who have depicted Bill and Hillary’s marriage as more a political partnership than an actual marriage?
There was a time, circa 2005-07, when Republicans demonized Hillary Clinton almost as thoroughly as Democrats now demonize Sarah Palin. But if any conservative commentator dragged Chelsea through the mud the way liberals have done with the Trig-Truther stuff, I must have missed it.
And something else: By the time I started covering Hillary’s campaign in March 2008, she was already fighting for her political survival and I found myself — despite my every partisan or ideological instinct — admiring her feisty determination. When she got to Shepherdstown, W.Va., in early May, the press corps was more or less demanding that Hillary quit the race. It was painful to see Chelsea have to stand next to her mother at that press conference while reporters peppered Hillary with variations of the same question: “Why don’t you quit, loser?”
Because you see, Hillary had the temerity oppose the anointing of Obama and, just as Ken Layne says of Sarah Palin, that made Hillary a “grave danger to America” in the eyes of the Obamaphiliac press.
Liberals think we’re stupid, but we’re not too stupid to see what they’re doing or to understand why they’re doing it.
