The New Republic

Via Andrew Sullivan, I came across this 'Good Morning America' interview with Levi Johnston. "Good Morning America" host Robin Roberts bills the interview as an "exclusive" and introduces it thusly:

Now for the first time Bristol Palin's former fiance is speaking out about why the couple ended their engagement.

Hearing all that, I automatically assumed this was going to be one of those typical morning show interviews in which some human interest story--whether it's the pilot who landed the US Airways plane on the Hudson or Octo-Mom--sits down in a New York studio and bears his soul. And I immediately thought of how wrong I'd been last week to tell the press to leave Bristol and Levi alone since they were just kids and they never asked for all this media attention. Johnston clearly wanted it.

But then I saw ABC News's "exclusive" interview with Johnston and it looks like it was pretty much an ambush. ABC's reporter--who must have travelled to Alaska from Seattle--is interviewing Johnston through the window of his pick-up truck as he tries to leave his house to go to the gym. And Johnston's "speaking out" is basically a bunch of shy, monosyllabic answers to the intruding reporter's questions. You can't watch this and tell me Johnston wanted to be talking to a reporter about his personal life.

Andrew, writing under the heading "The Unberable Hotness of Levi," says:

Just get him a reality show and be done with it. 

Maybe he doesn't want one! Leave the kid alone.

--Jason Zengerle

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