Levi And Bristol Announced Their Engagement On The Cover Of Us Magazine, Obviously

You know, we poke fun, but for a brief moment this morning while we were writing up this breaking news item, we allowed ourselves to feel ever so slightly warmly towards Alaska's beautiful star-crossed lovers. Lots of people screw up when they are young! It can't possibly be easy trying to negotiate teenage parenthood in the glare of the media -- a glare to which your Wonkette does its part to contribute! When news of the Bristol pregnancy broke, Barack Obama was ultra-classy and noted that his own mother was pregnant with him when quite young. Maybe we should leave the two of them to work out their life, and the future of their child, quietly! Oh, except then we found out that they "announced" their engagement on the God-damned cover of God-damned Us Magazine, a publication that is either the least classy of the glossy celebrity gossip sheets or the most classy of the tabloids, depending on how you classify things. It is a magazine that routinely puts on its cover bottom-feeding quasi-celebrities who are so obscure that your morning editor, who does shamefully follow this stuff, sometimes does not know who they are. This is the parish church at which Levi and Bristol's banns have been announced.

And what about Sarah Palin, the ostensible reason these two are of interest to anyone anywhere in the first place? Did Mama Grizzly have a heart-to-heart with her cub about these life-changing choices? No, of course not. She will hear about it in Us, to which she has a subscription.

And, they tell Us Weekly, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been kept in the dark about their plans ... until now.

"We got engaged two weeks ago," Bristol, 19, tells Us Weekly. "It felt right, even though we don't have the approval of our parents."

...

Says Bristol, "It is intimidating and scary just to think about what her reaction is going to be. Hopefully she will jump on board."

Unfortunately, in the 24/7 News environment with the blogs and the Twitter and the hey hey, Sarah heard it about it second hand, probably from a Google News Alert she has set up for "Levi Johnston sexin mah daughter," and had a statement ready for her preferred TV news outlet, the Today Show. 

Bristol at 19 is now a young adult. We obviously want what's best for our children. Bristol believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put in practice in our daily lives.

Sarah Palin doesn't forgive, Levi. She knows it's a Christian virtue -- knows sure as anything she'll be judged for it -- but forgiving's just not in her.

Let us circle back to the Us thing for a moment. This is a publication, and an industry, where paying the subjects of stories for stories about said subjects is routine. Did Levi and Bristol sell this "scoop" to Us? We have no idea. But honestly we'd prefer it if they did. The Palin money train's not going to last forever (and getting engaged to Levi might be a quick way for Bristol to get kicked off of it). That kid -- who is pretty cute, by the way, and who has done nothing to deserve his family -- is going to need clothes, and a college education, if he's lucky. Why not profit from bizarre unearned fame, while the profiting is good? The alternative is that they did it for the attention, to raise their profile in the reputation economy, or because it just seemed like the natural thing to do. Where else were they going to announce it, the Vows section of the Anchorage Daily News? Isn't mom feuding with them?

Meanwhile, Mercede Johnston has announced her intention to do more with her Twitter . A nation waits, with bated breath. [ Us ]