SALON

Friday, Jul 9, 2010 3:10 PM UTC

Levi’s sister can’t be tamed

The Palin-Johnston saga gets a new supporting character: Meet Mercede, full-time Bristol-hater

By

Topics: Levi Johnston, Broadsheet, Sarah Palin, Love and Sex,

Levi's sister can't be tamedMercede Johnston

You would think that being the sibling of the man who impregnated the daughter of Sarah Palin would be enough to get a measure of fame in contemporary America. And you would be correct. Lending further credibility to the notion that all of civilization is rapidly becoming an episode of “The Hills,” Levi’s Johnston’s sister Mercede has decided to bring her family drama to the place most suited to working out one’s issues: the Internet.

While her almost sister-in-law Bristol made her acting debut and brother Levi, in a flash of 12-steppish gentlemanliness, made amends to the Palin clan for the “youthful indiscretion” of saying things about them back in November “that were not completely true,” Mercede has been fanning the flames of discord like a Real Housewife on a bum batch of Adderall. Since launching her blog in June, Mercede has been eagerly fielding questions “about Wasilla, our life, and our family.” But on Wednesday, she really lit the match, writing with all the panache of the little sis that she is that “I will NOT sit down and shut up!” Claiming that her brother had sent a message over the weekend that “if I did not take my blog down by Wednesday that I would never get to see him, or [his son] Tripp, again,” Mercede launched into a grand, you’re-not-the-boss-of-me tirade.

“I can sleep with a completely clean conscious [sic],” she writes, “though I am not sure that others have that luxury.” The girl who’s been outspoken regarding her disdain for Bristol from the get-go pointed the icy finger of blame directly at Levi’s baby mama, ” I will not allow myself to be controlled by Bristol Palin like my brother is!” and adding “Bristol I am sure this is not the outcome you were hoping for, but you should know that I don’t respond well to threats.” Oh, it’s on.

Assuming that Levi, or Bristol-by-way-of-Levi actually did demand Mercede stop blogging, why would they be so pissed? Could it be because just days earlier, Mercede posted the bombshell that Bristol and Levi “were sexually active and trying to conceive a child. As hard as it is for many of you to believe, they were indeed TRYING. It was NOT an accident!” Or that Mercede posts excerpts from what she claims is Bristol’s Facebook page, wherein she tells Mercede, “I think this limelight gives you some sort of sick high. … I know you’re desperate for attention, but enough was enough about a year and a half ago. You hold no title, and you have no class.”

So far, the classiest-looking person in this whole is the guy who’s shilled for pistachios.

You don’t have to look too hard at Mercede’s rambling discourse to see a truly wounded spirit. This is a girl with an absent father and a mother who’s under house arrest. A girl who bears a tattoo of her brother’s name on her wrist, who writes that “I love you Levi and Tripp, and I will be right here waiting for you to see that MY love comes with no strings attached.” (Unlike someone else, someone whose name might just rhyme with Kristol Salin.) And God knows, there’s more than enough vitriol against the Palins to keep one of its intimate critics in business for at least months to come.  “I am going to keep my head up and continue to speak out,” she writes. Because for one small-town recently graduated Alaskan girl with a dysfunctional, high profile family, the best job in town right now seems to be venting about Bristol Palin.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 27 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
238 points239 points | 15 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
241 points242 points | 213 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
203 points204 points | 31 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
77 points78 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
71 points72 points | 4 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations