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The Rise and Fall of Levi Johnston

Posted by JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor in Politics, Society.
Sep 4th, 2009 | Comments

There may well be no stranger figure to arise from the election of 2008 than Levi Johnston. One minute he was just another high school jock, bragging to his buddies about how he was “getting some” from the Governor’s daughter. The next he was a soon to be father with a soon to be Mother-in-law who was running for vice president and quickly becoming one of the most divisive figures in the nation. It’s bad enough having put your main squeeze in a family way, but on top of that Levi was suddenly a topic of discussion and a symbol of something or other for the entire political chattering class. And he’s still out there today, long after the ashes of the election wars have cooled. So why do we continue to care about what he may have to say about the Palins? This is the subject of my column this weekend at Pajamas Media, “Why Levi Johnston Matters.”

You are, as always, invited to review the material and comment here as you see fit. I’m off fishing again at the moment, but I’ll be checking in regularly. Enjoy your weekend!

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Father_Time

NPR says the people at Vanity Fair are wacked, but I digress.

Watching Levi on TV, I got the impression that he is a pretty normal person. After months and months of Sarah Palin, I am convinced that she is a certifiable screwball and the farther away she is from the mutually assured destruction button, the better. Levi is important because he brings common credibility to what many of us wish everybody else understood about Sarah Palin.

DLS

Jazz, I've read scoffing by some people on this site, about Vanity Fair, but it did a better job than the liberal networks, and 99.99999% of liberals on-line, when it came to writing about Sarah Palin -- not to mention a better job than the Democrats (obviously) as well as her own Republican Party.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/200...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/09/...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/200...

You may be aware of the material there (Vanity Fair) about Eliot Spitzer already, Jazz.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/200...

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009...

Lit3Bolt

Ouch! Not much love at PM, is there Jazz? Plenty of howlers though.

"I do not watch the left-wing media (NBC, ABC, CBS, MSDNC, CNN, PBS,etc)"

and

"Conservatives largely believe in meritocracy"

and

"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."

How is the Manhattan social scene Jazz? You aren't drinking too many Martinis and gossiping about fashion with the fish, are you? =P

However, there is probably something to their comments. You said Levi Johnston matters because people wrote articles about him and so that's...why you wrote another article about him! I mean, it is newsworthy because Levi is out and about milking himself for what he's worth currently, but at the same time it smacks of "this is important because journalists know about it and so should you, dear reader." I'm not making much sense...it's a hard point to get across, but it's like it's a gossipy news article and then you and T-Steel collectively finger the public for consuming stories like this that you write in the first place. I mean, it can't be so simple as to be "MSM elevates, public maintains" because you could argue the MSM could elevate ANYTHING with enough effort and the public passively maintains it from then on (which is the nature of propoganda, I suppose). It's just a bit more chicken and egg than what you guys make it out to be, because the media and public are so synergistic I would hesitate to lay responsibility at one or the other.

Ok, enough babble.

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