Palin’s Eye on 2012
Sarah Palin Cleaning Up Her Dirty Laundry
The blogosphere is alight with rumors of the upcoming (on again and off again) nuptials of one Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin. While many assume Sarah Palin is upset by this news, this is nothing but predictable for an “abstinence-only” candidate who might have her eye on 2012.
The messy issue of having a pregnant teenage daughter during the 2008 campaign was put to bed via the announcement of upcoming nuptials. Conservatives who railed against Britney Spears’ sister for being an unwed mother (hurls of “Hollywood values” were oddly misplaced, as the Spears hail from Bible Belt land) did an about face when faced with Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter. And the announcement of the upcoming nuptials only made that hypocrisy easier to sell.
But as we all know, those plans fell apart when the couple broke up soon after Palin killed McCain’s hopes of mavericking his way to his destiny as President. A year and a half of very public feuding and veiled threats that Levi would tell all didn’t bode well for Palin. Palin has a habit of airing the dirty laundry of others for the nation to see, and then crying foul when any of the dirt comes back on her.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Someone must have finally advised the self-saboteur to cease and desist her juvenile feud with her daughter’s boyfriend. After all, what kind of President wastes her time fighting with a teenager?
Cut to the summer of 2010. Suddenly, we are being re-sold a Happy Ending to this rather putrid airing of family laundry. Yes, there’s to be a wedding after all. I mean, heck, it worked during 2008, why not now? And Levi Johnston has issued a public apology to his mother-in-law for his “youthful indiscretions”. Yes, the boy who called himself a “f*cking redneck” is suddenly keen on publicist generated phases like “youthful indiscretions”.
One hopes that Levi and Bristol’s reunion is rewarding for them, and there’s some reason to suspect that their reunion was the result of genuine feelings for one another– but frankly, their personal lives are just that. Personal. In fact, it’s really a shame that they were both used so dishonorably during the 2008 campaign and that Bristol Palin was outed by her own mother in an attempt to discredit rumors about Sarah Palin’s own odd pregnancy narrative. The fact that Sarah Palin used her daughter thusly goes to Sarah Palin’s character, and is quite relevant to her suitability as a political candidate. But the kids’ business is their business. There’s just no way that Levi Johnston’s public apology was an organic, genuine apology. Its obviously orchestrated culpability raises the red flag of Sarah Palin’s hand.
And so what is worth noting is what this signals in terms of Palin’s intentions for 2012.
All you need to know is that the thorn in her side has bowed to Palin and you should forget all of the messy ickiness of Palin’s very unpresidential fight with a teenage boy and his family.
Because certainly that was not an abuse of power like Palin’s interference in her sister’s marital problems. No, no. Palin is rewriting history again and you’d be hard-pressed to find a conservative unwilling to swallow this latest phony narrative.
All hail the happy “family values” Palin candidacy.
As an aside, Politicususa wishes the best for the young couple.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
