“Aren’t you supposed to be sheep hunting?” and he said, “Yeah, I was, till the Secret Service came and took my sheep-hunting partner!” and they laughed.

Levi and Mrs. Palin in a loving moment when he was of some use to her.

Levi was in the plane. It flew him all the way to a city in another world, in what he would describe as flying south, in Minnesota, and dropped him into a sort of conference room, full of talkative people — some of whose faces he knew without knowing how — and a guy was touching him, and before the smell of the open country had left his nostrils completely he was leaning back in a chair, having makeup applied to his face, to his eyes and neck, and gel worked into his hair. They had cut his hair. Indeed they had given him a superb haircut, probably the best he would ever have, a haircut designed to shape away the last traces of baby fat from his cheeks and define his jawline, and they stood him in the corner and dressed him from head to toe in new preppy clothes and looked him in the face and said, “You do not say a word.”

“Those words exactly?” he was asked.

“Pretty much,” he answered.

If facts were unstable — it may not have been the Secret Service, it may have been campaign operatives; they got him not from the field but from a campsite, or picked him up at home on the day after the hunt — that paled in interest next to the sense, as you spoke to people here, that you were hearing a scrap of western folklore being born. The boy who went to hunt sheep, and got spirited off by the Secret Service, and then came home.

Just One Momentito
It takes some mental effort to recover the feeling of how much he seemed to mean at one time, and practically yesterday. We are post-Levi. It’s decadent to think of him now. But the chemical traces remain of a plausibility structure inside which his very face seemed full of information and even warning to the nation. Something was happening to the country, people will have to take sides, it was splitting in two. Levi looked like a place where the ripping might start. We were laughing at him then, of course — that was largely it. If McCain’s choosing Palin had been cynical (as borne out by their recoiling from each other, when they were said to have been 'soul mates'), not until his embrace of Levi did things become farcical. Conservative Republican under investagation for 'abuse of power' conspiracay after conspiracy and her teenage daughter is pregnant. No vetting going on here! So, September 3, on the tarmac, that was when you knew we had reached some point, some level. The McCains came out to welcome the Palins onto the ticket. It was an introduction and some kind of cryptic archconservative coronation. Wind blowing, Bristol dressed in a crisp khaki dress coat. Suddenly into the group shot hove this Levi, chaw-chomping Levi, young, dumb, and full of comeliness, a self-proclaimed redneck hockey enthusiast, no-kids-wanting-but-no-protection-using Levi Johnston, tricked out like a duck hunter now, granted, not like a serious hunter, but no less ready to kick your ass if you messed with him. He's a bargain with American masculinity, and at the same time a captivating time bomb of white Alaskan authenticity, with a tattoo on his ring finger. We knew he was there only because it had been deemed worse for him not to be there. That gave him a curious magnetism, don't you think? And John McCain, fine, he was trying to win a campaign, he’s an opportunist. He’s also a United States senator and a war hero, and there was something in how he greeted Levi — how for a second it mattered whether he greeted this boy, and in what manner — like an acknowledgment. Not of one man to another, exactly, but of one force to another. It was either the beginning or the end of something. Briefly recall when you didn’t know which.

Wasilla
It is  surrounded by water and wilderness. Stand there and blink back and forth, shutting your left eye, then your right. Left eye: spit of highway, aggressive proliferation of half-abandoned strip malls, a few roads dwindling off to little houses. Right eye: the mountains, the expanding sky, the shadowy crevasses, a bald eagle. Highway, strip malls, little houses; mountains, sky, crevasses, eagle.

For most of its history, the Iditarod dogsled race began here, in the heart of the Mat-Su Valley, but the snow is not coming heavy enough anymore. They have moved the starting line. Wasilla has changed for the worst concerning Sarah Palin.

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Story from Huffington Post

The full GQ profile of Levi Johnston is now online. The whole article is pretty interesting, especially if you're into bear hunting. But the most revealing passages from the subject himself come at the end, where he discusses his breakup with Bristol Palin.

Just going over there makes me pretty damn uncomfortable. I would call and say, "Can I pick him up?" It was, "No, you can't have him, but you can come see him." Just going over there, and Todd and Sarah sitting there staring at me, doesn't do it for me. Todd never says anything, really. Sarah, I don't know. She's a politician. She knows how to throw in a fake smile and look happy. They're pretty good at that.

Everybody was kind of like, we didn't talk as much anymore, you know, and we just kind of like drifted apart, as far as me and Sarah and Todd. Then me and Bristol just started fighting more and more. I thought it was, like, 'cause she was pregnant, she was moody and that kind of thing. So I was dealing with it and stuff. But it didn't stop after she had Tripp. Things got worse. So I was like, "All right."

As to whether he wanted to get back together with Bristol, Levi said "That's just not even in my mind ... There's lots of pretty girls." But when asked whether it bothered him that he "changed your whole life for this future and now they've shut you out," the young father simply said, "Yes."

In an yet-to-be released interview with GQ, Levi Johnston, the ex-boyfriend of teen mom Bristol Palin (and father to her son, Tripp) reveals even more details about the dynamics of his relationship with Bristol and her family.

Johnston told GQ that Todd Palin, on multiple occasions, offered to buy his daughter a car if she would break up him.

Since their split in March the two have separately given numerous media interviews, in which various divides have emerged. Johnston has declared that abstinence is unrealistic and been fairly frank in discussing the couple's love life. His family has also gone public with complaints that the Palins do not allow them enough contact with the baby. Bristol, on the other hand, after initially questioning abstinence has become an ardent campaigner for the cause but reluctant to discuss her own romantic past.

According to New York Magazine, who snagged a preview of the article, Johnston said he has no plans to get back together with Bristol.

Some of the points in this article and in general have everything to do with the lack of character and integrity.

The only reason it is "talked about" is because week in week out Sarah does things to thrust herself into the Media. .........Remember how she is whining about the MMS picking on her, focusing attention on her personal life and how wrong it is for the MMS to involve her kids?

Well the FACT is that Sarah is not bright enough to realize she is the CAUSE of the media talking about her incompetent behavior, her lack of family values.

Even if she is aware of it, it means she doesn't care that negative attention may not hurt her, but it hurts everyone around her, it is worse then no media attention.

She even hired/or had a public relations adviser that told her to stay out of the media but obviously she is so narsisstic that she can not comprehend why.

It can be done and is a blessing when it is.

Sarah barges into the interview with Greta

Mercedes talks about having her brother's name tattooed on her wrist.

Do you like irony? Sure, we all do! Here is a statement Sarah Palin's flack gave to People regarding the recent Tyra appearance by campaign prop and real-life boy Levi Johnston.

"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 Wasilla, 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 Bristol, 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 that Levi 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 having sex with her daughter, because "Moms are pretty smart," and apparently that is a GROSS DISTORTION.

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From People Magazine... March

Tom Whitstine Jr., a longtime co-worker of Todd's, believes the Palins have also opposed the Bristol-Levi romance, at least in the past. Last year her parents sent her to Anchorage to do her junior year of high school and live with Sarah's sister Heather Bruce. "Basically, they were trying to limit her contact with Levi, trying to be good parents," says Whitstine. "The method didn't work out. Now he's part of Tripp's family forever."

Yep, that's my husband, he did give the Palin's credit for trying to do something for their strong-willed teenager Bristol. However, their method didn't work out.

Lorenzo Benet took what he wanted from the interview and presented it the way he wanted it to be perceived. He's a talented and experienced writer, that's how it's done. 

His book 'Trail Blazer is pro Palin, an intimate portrait. Heather Bruce, Sarah's sister came to me in August because it was my name out there on the blogs to blame for this information being revealed. By the time Heather showed up denying everything, I personally had seen Bristol a couple times very pregnant, so their denial was for naught. It was common knowledge that Bristol was in trouble in Juneau. The authors of this story in People Magazine left out the main reasons why Bristol was sent away. There were many issues on 'why' the Palin's may have sent her away discussed when interviewed. The established understanding, which is not unlike any teen dealing with being taken out of their community, she was rebelling, she just wanted to be in Wasilla with her friends and BF Levi Johnston.  Bristol Palin wasn't doing well in school, she was a party girl, and was becoming increasingly out of conrol, also an embarrassment for her parents. 

So she was sent to Anchorage to live with family, (they tried, I suppose). Tom obviously had no intention to suggest it was exclusively to limit her contact from Levi Johnston, there were so many reasons. Levi didn't live in Juneau, so sending her away from Juneau doesn't make sense. Perhaps they had contact by phone, but, it's clear Levi had little contact physically with Bristol except when she would be in Wasilla. Wasilla trips did occur more than we might have suspected. ( FACT ..Palin charged 312 days per diem during her 19 months in office while staying at home in Wasilla.)  Than as we hear when Bristol moved back to Wasilla, which could have been sometime just before Levi in interview said, after she was already pregnant he and Bristol where given a room to share in the Palin home. 

Does it ever end? Levi on Tyra Banks

Levi Johnston reveals on 'Tyra Banks' show that Sarah Palin knew he and Bristol were having sex

By Michael Saul
DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Friday, April 3rd 2009,

Antonelli/News

Levi Johnston (r.), ex-boyfriend and baby daddy of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol (l.), spoke with Tyra Banks about his time in the Alaska governor's household.

She knew?

You betcha, says the baby daddy of Sarah Palin's grandson.

The Alaska governor most likely was aware before her daughter, Bristol, became pregnant that the teenager and her hockey hunk boyfriend were having sex, Levi Johnston said in a bombshell new interview.

"I'm pretty sure she probably knew. Moms are pretty smart," said Johnston, 18, the father of the governor's first grandchild, in an interview that will air Monday on "The Tyra Banks Show."

Johnston said he and Bristol Palin practiced safe sex "most of the time."

News of Bristol's pregnancy at age 17 burst onto the national stage last summer just days after GOP presidential nominee John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate.

At the time, Sarah Palin said she was stunned to learn of the pregnancy.

"When Bristol and Levi first told us the shocking news that she was pregnant, to be honest, we all at first looked at the situation with some fear and a bit of despair," the governor said. "Isn't it just like God to turn those circumstances into such an amazing, joyful blessing when you ask Him to help you through?"

A spokeswoman for Palin could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

The teenagers, who were engaged to be married until their recent break-up, appeared together at the Republican National Convention in September. Their child, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, was born Dec. 27, more than a month after Sarah Palin lost her bid to be the nation's first female vice president.

Johnston's mother, Sherry, and sister, Mercede (Sadie's myspace page), who also appear on the show, said they were under a gag order from the McCain campaign during the presidential race.
Mercede said, "We were supposed to say that all questions need be brought up to the McCain campaign. Other than that we had to say no comment."

Johnston said he was sharing a room with Bristol Palin in the governor's home prior to their recent break-up. He moved into the Palin home about one to two weeks before Bristol gave birth and was living there until they broke up.

In the interview, the family dishes extensively about Palin's family, the presidential campaign, Johnston's relationship with Bristol Palin and the "real reasons" they are no longer together after having a child together.

Johnston showed off a "Bristol" tattoo on his ring finger.

S-TATTOO-large

Last month, Bristol Palin told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that it wasn't smart to get pregnant at her young age, but the abstinence her mom preaches is "not realistic at all."

"Everyone should wait 10 years," Bristol Palin said. "I hope people learn from my story.

"It's so much easier if you're married, have a house and career. It's not a situation you want to strive for."

Bristol Palin denied that her mother's anti-abortion views were the reason she went ahead with the pregnancy.

"It was my choice to have the baby," she said. "It doesn't matter what my mom's views are on it. It was my decision."

She conceded that it was very difficult to tell her mom that she was pregnant.

How difficult?

"Harder than labor," she said.

Inside scoop....I have gotten word that Bristol is not totally dedicated to raising a child, graduating or finding work- a girl's got to have fun. She's been hookin up with another 18 year old guy here in Wasilla.  

Click here to see a video clip from Johnston's interview with Tyra Banks.

 

 

March. 11, 2009

Bristol Palin and her fiancé Levi Johnston have broken up, Mercedes Johnston and another source tell PEOPLE.

The split happened "a few weeks ago," according to a source close to the couple, but it's unclear what precipitated it. "It was a mutual thing," adds the source.

Bristol, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, spoke with FOX News in February and told Greta Van Susteren that she and Levi – who are parents to 2-month-old son, Tripp – expected to get married after they completed high school.

"It kind of just happened," says the source, referring to the split. "I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp."

"I'm not sure what caused [them to break up] – it's common knowledge," says another source who knows the family.

Despite the breakup, Levi still sees the couple's son. Levi's dad, Keith Johnston, told PEOPLE recently that his son is a devoted and "proud father."

Plans for the future
Bristol, meanwhile, is attending Wasilla High, taking a class to supplement course work she is completing at home. She also is considering enrolling in college next fall and studying nursing.

Bristol has been spotted around Wasilla shopping and exercising. She recently returned from Juneau where she was visiting her mother, who is spending the winter in the state's capital with daughter Piper and son Trig during the legislative session.

As for how she is holding up after the split, the source tells PEOPLE: "Bristol's doing okay. Tripp is fine."

Representatives for Gov. Palin have not returned calls for comment.

More on this from a local blogger Celtic Diva

The teen love affair that rocked last year's presidential race is over.

Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, has ditched her baby daddy, Levi Johnston!

Now's Levi's sister, Mercede is telling all exclusively to Star and the picture she paints of life in Wasilla, Alaska is not a pretty one. Bristol, 18, has virtually cut Levi out of the life of their two-month-old son Tripp.

"Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible. She tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't want him around 'white trash'!" Bristol won't even allow him to watch the baby for a few hours -- unless he's babysitting!

The worst part, Mercede continues, is that the former vice presidential candidate supports Bristol's treatment of Levi, 19. "I used to love Sarah," Mercede says sadly. "But I've lost lots of respect for her."

**UPDATE** My girl at Alaska AP, Rachel D'Oro, is on it:

Levi Johnston told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and Bristol Palin mutually decided "a while ago" to end their relationship. The 19-year-old Johnston declined to elaborate.

Eighteen-year-old Bristol Palin says in a statement to the AP that she is "devastated."

The two are the parents of a boy named Tripp, who was born Dec. 27.

Sarah Palin revealed her daughter's pregnancy days after being named John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.

I'd like to emphasize this part:

In an interview that aired on Fox News last month, Bristol Palin said her fiance saw the baby every day and described him as a "hands-on" dad.

So, I guess one of the "Palin family values" is lying effectively to the press!

Like mother, like daughter.

[Update: Yep, it's true.]

The message was supposedly left by Mercede Johnston, Levi's 18-year-old sister, on the page of Mellissa Wilfong, a former Wasilla resident who now lives in Florida, to tell her about an upcoming trip to Orlando. As an aside, she notes that she and her mom (that would be Sherry, the one who was busted for dealing OxyContin) aren't allowed to visit Bristol and Levi's love child.

For those who have trouble reading the prose of this fine product of the Wasilla school system, here's a translation:

Levi is in a bit of a haze right now... Umm, I'm not allowed to see my nephew and my mom isn't either. We aren't Palins so therefore we are white trash and Bristol doesn't want her baby around us. So mom and I are really upset over it. I just hope Levi pulls his head out of his butt and lets us see our nephew and her grandbaby.

It's not just the utter inability to spell that makes us think this is the real Mercede. Her MySpace page (which is set to private) has been the source of other fun Palin family revelations.

Read Captions if you really want to be confused.....

Sadie's myspacecontext

In happier days, i.e. last year, Mercede shown at a facility of some sort in pictures holding Trig and expressing clearly that he was her (Sadie's) little baby brother. The photo of Bristol is taken around the time it's believed she had just become pregnant. More interesting is the caption stating Palin is Sadie's mommy in law. Why would she say that? How could that even be if Sarah is Trig's mommy? Palin supposedly just gave birth (see above). And Wilfong appears to be in the Palin orbit as well. Last September, while some was claiming that Trig was actually Bristol's baby, she piped up on Fox News' web site to tell everyone to shut up, note that her sons used to attend school with Bristol, and that they have heard different, and she wouldn't be voting for the former Wasilla Mayor. (Smart lady.)

(Yep, her name is spelled Mercede. Here in Wasilla names are so damn creative.)

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