The Bristol Stomp

Well, the greatest non-story of the 2008 presidential race is finally over:

Bristol Palin finally gave birth to a baby boy. The media were duly alerted.

I always felt genuinely sorry for this young woman. First, she has had the misfortune of having Sarah Palin as a mother--a grave misfortune indeed. Last night, I began working my way through Dickens' Bleak House, which features a minor character named Mrs. Jellyby. This woman devotes all of her energies to helping settle unemployed British people on African coffee plantations but neglects her own family scandalously. It is hard not to see something of Sarah Palin in Mrs. Jellyby.

Second, she had to have her private decision to marry her boyfriend subjected to all kinds of scrutiny by a hostile media. Perhaps the most disgusting thing I have seen in a long while was Bill Maher getting up on his program and creating a "Free Levi" website--dedicated to freeing Levi Johnston, father of Bristol Palin's baby, whom he dubbed a "political prisoner." I'm sorry--I just don't see humor in encouraging a man to abandon his fiancee and unborn child. Watching this spectacle made me feel that the cultural left had just gone off the deep end.

Most of all, however, I felt Bristol Palin did not deserve the level of attention she got. There just was no story there, and I think the media, to its credit, realized this quickly. It's hard to think of any aspect of life that is made easier by being the focus of a media circus. For about a minute there, Bristol was no doubt a distraction from whoever the latest missing blonde college girl was.

Congratulations, Levi and Bristol. We will now finally stop doing the Bristol Stomp.