Levi Johnston was an Alaska teenager pursuing the same ends as pretty much every other teenage boy, when he was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight at the worst possible moment. We can all sympathize with that, if not with what followed, as, after the election, Johnston fell in with liberals who used him as a tool to attack Sarah Palin. Now Johnston, apparently sadder and wiser, has admitted that much of what he told the liberal media about the Palin family was untrue:
“Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize.”
Bristol added her own statement Tuesday saying, “Part of co-parenting is creating healthy and honest relationships between the parents. Tripp one day needs to know the truth and needs to know that even if a mistake is made the honorable thing to do is to own up to it.” …
“So to the Palin family in general and to Sarah Palin in particular, please accept my regrets and forgive my youthful indiscretion,” Johnston says in the statement. “I hope one day to restore your trust.”
Most of us, of course, never were hanging on Levi Johnston’s latest bulletins about the Palin family, but one wonders about the handful of gutter journalists who built their careers, in part, on Johnston’s lies. Like, specifically, Andrew Sullivan, the once-respected journalist who went completely nuts over the maternity of Sarah Palin’s youngest child.
We all make mistakes, but there are levels of insanity from which it is impossible to come back. Andrew plumbed the depths with his fevered speculations about the Palin family, based in part on Levi’s tales, as the linked web site search shows. There are a great many reporters and editors who owe Sarah Palin an apology, but first on the list is the repugnant Andrew Sullivan. It will be interesting to see whether he faces up to the inevitable.
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