Perhaps Levi Johnston (18) and Bristol Palin (17) can be married by Judge David L. Zwink, who presided at their speeding and traffic infraction trials (guilty every time). Judge Zink also found Mr. Johnston guilty of two game fishing violations carrying $100 and $250 fines (he paid them late).
Levi Johnston, a hockey player for Wasilla High School, is not listed on the team roster for 2008-2009, and his mother isn’t saying if he graduated. She does say he’s no longer a student. — Mark Silva, The Swamp.
Mr. Johnston describes his accomplishments, values, and ambitions on his MySpace page, report Samuel Goldsmith and Clemente Lisi in the New York Post:
“I’m a f – – -in’ redneck” who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.
“But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- – – and just f – – -in’ chillin’ I guess.”
“Ya f – – – with me I’ll kick [your] ass,” he added.
He also claims to be “in a relationship,” but states, “I don’t want kids.”
Why does this matter? Because Sarah Palin has always run for office on Motherhood. She can do it all, because she is a Mom. She is a working mother, a “hockey mom.” She even has the gall to say she is a good mother. She is not being held to a different standard because she is a woman; she is boasting of her motherhood, using it as a political credential to prove her competence as an executive official.
Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, the one with the traffic tickets, is pregnant by a high school drop-out. It sounds like the “good mother” claim is off the table. Sarah Palin will have to be judged like any other politician. At least Judge Zwink is not presiding this time.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Q: Do unwed daddies spend time in the penalty box? Would that be Offsides or High-Sticking?
NotionsCapital 
September 3, 2008 at 6:30 am
I have to point out that what you are in fact attacking (by drawing on this young man’s character) is HIS mother’s parenting skills. While I understand that Bristol’s choice of partner and her (their) subsequent actions may suggest a lack of parenting skills on Ms. Palin’s part, your argument here is more about this boy’s upbringing and rings hollow.
Furthermore, while I agree that Ms. Palin’s campaigning with her parenting skills as a qualification should be questioned, I’d be much more interested in discussing why this woman (a) allowed a high-risk pregnancy to ensue at the age of 43 when she already had 4 beautiful children [that’s not a criticism for KEEPING it – it’s a criticism for STARTING it…or being too neglectful to prevent it] and (b) chose to board an airplane twice [round-trip] while she suspected she was in labor in order to make it to a political event, in direct defiance of her doctor’s orders to be on bed rest. To me, both of these actions are far more neglectful and concerning, and I’m shocked that we’re focusing on her 17 year old daughter’s choice of a partner instead.
Finally, invading this poor young man’s life by publishing his MySpace profile as evidence of Ms. Palin’s short-comings is outrageous. There are literally MILLIONS of children/teenagers/adults out there who have profile postings that would be shockingly embarrassing if given national attention…they mean nothing, and to judge Ms. Palin by such evidence is silly to say the least. He is a child, and perhaps he’s a child who was sexually irresponsible, but that doesn’t mean he deserves this invasion into his life by the American public or that his MySpace page is the best place to analyze Ms. Palin’s character.
All of this said, I oppose Ms. Palin’s nomination for several reasons, but we simply cannot make her daughter’s choice of a partner the focus here. I think there are a myriad of pragmatic reasons why Ms. Palin is a poor choice, far beyond the fact that she seems to have egregiously endangered her youngest child’s life, even (lack of foreign policy experience, unpreparedness to work on a national level, record of supporting censorship in the form of book-banning, questionable ‘loose-cannon’ firings of employees, to name a few). We would much better focus on those issues than act like a bunch of teenagers gossiping about who ‘knocked-up’ who.
September 3, 2008 at 6:58 am
S.T.H.: Sarah Palin and her ilk have made “Family” a political issue, so scrutiny of her family practice, as opposed to her professed values, is fair game.
Governor Palin brought this whole issue into the race, and her running mate allowed it. Sarah Palin made her daughter’s pregnancy — and her own — a political issue.
Bristol Palin certainly had a role in her own pregnancy; so did the woman who raised her and uses her motherhood as her primary qualification to run for political office.
Levi Johnston is 18; his MySpace page is fair game. Mr. Johnston is headed to the GOP Convention, where he will no doubt claim the page is a joke (yeah, right).
The GOP will focus on this sexual soap-opera to distract the country from the disasters of the Bush-Cheney years and “energize their base;” they are the ones without shame or judgment. This will have to met head-on, quite easy since they are as hypocritical is this arena as many others. For example, how will the GOP reconcile the Sanctity of Marriage with John McCain’s bigamy? It is part of the legal record.
September 3, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Now we understand what “high sticking” refers to. Big fun in Wasilla HS . Is this Levi a drop out or did he take time out from tokin to get a GED ? Looks like the Republican “cleaners” are in high gear to remove all the info on the Palin/Johnson tribe, even putting a gag on his Mom.
BC bud is big in Wasilla.
This is like a TV show, but funnier and more pathetic, Twin Peaks redux ?
September 3, 2008 at 1:05 pm
pari:
Small town life can be really intense. I don’t blame Ms. Johnston for clamming up.
The story just gets weirder. There are indications that Bristol was not living at home recently, but we don’t know if that was due to friction at home or just logistics. This is too much like daytime TV.
We just learned that Mayor Palin hired a city manager to do her work for her — she couldn’t run a town of 5500 but now she may be an elderly heartbeat away from the US presidency.
September 4, 2008 at 10:49 am
[…] She received a chuckling ovation. There was general disappointment that Levi Johnston, the drop-out redneck boyfriend of Bristol Palin, the Governor’s pregnant and unwed 17-year-old daughter, was a no-show. Mr. Johnston may have […]
September 12, 2008 at 8:10 pm
The drop-out issue DOES matter, because Sarah Palin as Governor has taken a position on the issue. She denies a comprehensive study of state drop-out rates done by Johns Hopkins University, which demonstrates clearly that Alaska has one of the nation’s highest dropout rates. In fact, the high school in her own town of Wasilla was rated as a “dropout factory”.
In a release issued by Gov. Palin herself on November 8, 2007 (http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-51078.html), she stated to the high school principals:
“I want you to know that neither I nor anyone in my administration believe this inflammatory label is accurate or fair.”
Meanwhile, Freshmen UAA (University of Alaska at Anchorage) students are also dropping out at a whopping 28% rate, because they are discovering that they are ill-prepared for college academics: http://www.adn.com/education/story/417891.html
I have gone to UAA. I am here to tell you it is NOT that hard. I held an overload of credits (usually 17-18 credits per semester) while working a full time job, plus working at least additional 12 hours a week on the volunteer fire and ambulance service, and still managing to earn a 4.0 gpa every year.
Education in Alaska is a mess, thanks in no small part to the ostrich mentality of Sarah Palin.
September 15, 2008 at 1:39 pm
[…] a recent Alaskan commenter points out, it is not unusual that the father of Governor Palin’s out-of-wedlock granddaughter-to-be is […]
July 5, 2009 at 4:37 pm
[…] you ask. “A high school dropout is writing book?” Please recall Mrs. Palin’s clarification: Mr. Johnston isn’t a […]
July 18, 2010 at 12:50 am
[…] is an unemployed dropout from Wasilla High School, where he played hockey while fathering Miss Palin’s son, Tripp […]