Ben Folds' Tribute to Levi Johnston

From Mediaite:

The chorus actually borrows directly from Johnston’s now-defunct MySpace page that became popular after Sarah Palin was announced as the GOP VP nominee. This is a pretty classic hook – but it makes it even better that it came from Levi himself:

I’m a fuckin’ redneck, I like to hang out with the boys
Play some hockey, do some fishing, and kill some moose.
I like to shoot the shit and do some chillin’, I guess.
Ya fuck with me and I’ll kick your ass.

Well, now the proposed reality show has a theme song…

Expanding the Political Lexicon, One Tweet at a Time

Juan Cole's must-read on the Palin-Shakespeare-Twitter kerfuffle:

There are many things wrong with the original tweet. “Refudiate” is, of course, not a word, and a case could be made for making Ms. Palin pay her parents back for all the money they spent on her education.

The phrase ‘stab you in the heart as it does ours’ should be ‘stab you in the heart as it does us’– she has incorrectly switched from a direct object of the transitive verb ‘to stab’ to a possessive modifying heart; in the first parallel phrase, ‘heart’ was the the object of a preposition.

The further errors in the tweet have to do with substance. A tiny fringe cult destroyed the Twin Towers in New York, not Islam in general (a religion of 1.5 billion human beings which could well be the religion of 3 billion human beings by mid-century). A monument to Usama Bin Laden or al-Qaeda would be in poor taste. A mosque, built anywhere in the United States, is not.

The #shakesplain hashtag on Twitter is hours of entertainment and you can play along!

Time's Joe Klein weighs in on the benign AND evil aspects of Palin's latest 140-character misstep:

Palin poses a potential gold-rush of neo-Americanoid language.

Little Green Footballs points out Palin used "refudiate" in an interview with Sean Hannity last week. It comes at the end around 2:35 in the clip.



The Guardian has an article and puts out a challenge to readers to coin their own new words. The comments below the article are worth the read including this:

Palindrone = the meaningless noise that comes out of Sarah Palin's stupid face.

Palin Family Circus on Steroids

Yesterday was political theater Christmas! Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston announce their engagement - via the cover of US Weekly and a magazine spokesperson on the Today show. They don't tell Sarah Palin prior to announcement. And apparently they didn't tell Levi's sister Mercedes either. In her blog, Mercedes reacts to the surprise and then offers to be their wedding planner. Bristol reveals that they will marry in Alaska next month and the groom will wear "camo." Sarah and Todd Palin's press statement is more than a little chilly.

“Bristol at 19 is now a young adult. We obviously want what’s best for our children. Bristol believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put in practice in our daily lives.”

UPDATE: Gawker has an exhaustive compendium called All the Trash Levi Johnston Has Talked About His Future Mother-in-Law.

Tabloid Marriage

From The Today Show: Bristol Palin was worried about how she was going to tell her mother that she’s engaged to marry Levi Johnston, the father of her 18-month-old son.

She solved the problem by telling a tabloid magazine.

“We got engaged two weeks ago. It felt right, even though we don’t have the approval of our parents,” Palin told Us Weekly magazine in a bombshell story published Wednesday.

And in People Magazine, Bristol blames Sarah Palin for their break-up.

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The Palin Puppet Soap Opera

Levi Johnston's reconciliation with Bristol Palin and the Palin family resulted in Levi threatening his sister Mercede.

The message was from my mother saying that Levi, who has not spoken to us since he rekindled his relationship with Bristol (although we had attempted repeatedly to call or text him), left a message saying that if I did not take my blog down by Wednesday that I would never get to see him, or Tripp, again.

Mercede continued her blog post with this:

As for this new People magazine article where my brother “Apologizes to the Palins” I am extremely disappointed in him. Not only is he being controlled like a puppet, but saying that all of his comments and stories were lies is absurd!

I know for a fact that all of his comments were true. I lived through all this and I remember clear as day all of the times that Levi would come home and tell me about Sarah complaining, or fights going on between the family, .etc.

I know he wasn’t making all that up, why would he have back then? I am very disappointed that he is allowing them to control him in such a manner.

Levi, please don’t do this to yourself and family again.

I am not afraid of the Palins. And yeah maybe it is just me up against a huge army of Palin supporters, but really what else can they take from me?

Nothing.

In the end the truth shall prevail.

Liberal Elites Devote More Ink to Levi Johnston

Gail Collins on the editorial page of the NY Times on Levi Johnston:

But this week Johnston sent out an olive branch, via People magazine. “Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true,” he said.

We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.

Chewin', Spittin' & Apologizin'

Someone in the Palin Family Circus apologizes - but his last name isn't Palin. Levi Johnston's mea culpa in People magazine:

"Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true," he tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize."

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan weighs in on the apology:

I suspect, for what it's worth, that the Palins have used their real weapon against him - his love for Bristol and his kid - to coerce him back into line. For the record, nothing he said struck me as in any way far-fetched. And until he tells us what exactly wasn't "completely true", there's not much more to say.

Oh, and he was awesome on Kathy Griffin.

Palin Porn

From The Huffington Post:

As part of the "Porn in the U.S.A." exhibition at the London-based Lazarides Gallery's L.A. pop-up space, British artist Jonathan Yeo -- who rose to international attention after making a collage of George W. Bush out of clippings of pornography in 2007 -- will unveil another series of provocative collages next Friday. Among them you'll find Tiger Woods, Sigmund Freud, a wizened image of Sean Connery as James Bond, and the piece de resistance, Sarah Palin, wrapped in a moose head frame, no less. Instead of oil, the former Alaskan governor's face is rendered with images of pubic hair, lace panties, and engorged reproductive organs of both sexes. "They're not insults, per se," Yeo told ARTINFO. "They're just comments on people who trade off their morality and sexuality.

The Not So Secret Life of Bristol Palin - The Saga

Next week, Bristol Palin makes a guest appearance on ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager".

Note to Sarah Palin: We would gladly leave your children alone if you would stop inflicting them on the American public and using them to as political props. (And to pad your bank account.) Hat tip to DWR for this gem!