On "The Daily Show," she says it was tough being criticized for looking "like a stripper" next to a "pregnant teen"
Meghan McCain stopped by “The Daily Show” last night to promote her new book “Dirty Sexy Politics,” which has been reviewed as being neither very dirty nor very sexy — but the 25-year-old did get in a marginally dirty dig at Bristol Palin.
While talking about her insecurity during the campaign, she said: “When you’re sent to an image consultant and said that you look like a stripper and talk bad and you’re hurting the campaign when, you know, there’s a pregnant teen there, it does a little bit to your self-esteem.” I could launch into a diatribe about why looking like a stripper might be treated as a greater liability than being a pregnant teen, or at least comparable one, and what that reveals about attitudes toward women’s sexuality in the Republican Party — but instead, I’ll just allow you to enjoy the clip.
Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory
In an awkward interview, Dr. Drew tries to convince Bristol she was raped
Imagine the worst thing that could happen to television that doesn’t involve Nancy Grace or Charlie Sheen. That’s right — Bristol Palin is sitting down with Dr. Drew Pinsky. Your TV hates its life so much right now.
On a Very Special Episode of Dr. Drew’s new HLN show Thursday night, the woman whose status as a best-selling author has driven an entire continent of MFAs to torch their manuscripts and get drunk on lighter fluid will reveal “what she considers her biggest regret, how she betrayed her family, her relationship with her mother, her new look, and if she thinks abstinence can really work.” I’m laying my money down on losing her virginity, losing her virginity, chin job, yes.
It also promises to be a typical evening of Dr. Drew’s Helpy Helperton shtick, as a sneak preview reveals. And when Palin speaks of “a series of bad decisions,” Dr. Drew quickly interjects, “Well, one of them was intoxicated. In California, that would be a rape. Is it the same in Alaska?” Because it’s definitely the same in Drew Pinksy’s head.
Palin has said in her book that she doesn’t remember losing her virginity to Levi Johnston during a wine cooler-fueled camping trip, and describes feeling like her virginity was “stolen.” But she has also been consistently clear that she doesn’t believe she was the victim of a sexual assault.
“I’m not accusing Levi of rape,” she tells Dr. Drew, who quickly counters with, “Did it feel like a rape?”
“It was consensual,” she says, clearly flustered, “because I stayed with him for years on end after that.”
But like a dog with a bone, Pinsky doesn’t let go. “You don’t remember what kids do,” he chides her, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. “They try to make it riiiiiiiiight by justifying sticking together.” Wake up, Bristol, Dr. Drew is here with your rape rehab!
Only Palin and Johnston know for sure what happened in that tent that night, and from the sound of things, they’re pretty hazy on the details themselves. But while it doesn’t sound like any teenager’s finest moment, Palin’s response suggests that she views it as a drunken hookup and a rip-off, but ultimately, a willing act. And if that’s good enough for her, why should Dr. Drew or anybody else try to make her paint herself as a victim?
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
This week we're on the fence about: Rob Lowe as Drew Peterson, Shia LaBeouf's film about Marilyn Manson, and more!
Topics:Pop Torn,
Bristol Palin,
Celebrity,
Documentaries,
Drugs,
Lady Gaga,
Sex,
Sex Education,
Twitter,
Viral Video,
Television
Casey Anthony. Rupert Murdoch. South Sudan. OK, have you got that out of your system yet? Good, because it’s time for our weekly roundup of the cultural news that will really have you going “Oh. That’s… weird?” Continue if you dare.
Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant
And no one much cares
If, two years ago, you knew that in late June of 2011, both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama would be in Iowa on the same day, you would’ve predicted that that day would be a major political event, with wall-to-wall coverage on all the cable news networks and massive stories in the major newspapers and on the political sites. Instead, Politico right now has eight separate Michele Bachmann headlines on the front page. The Palin story is at the bottom of the front page, below an interview with Bob Herbert.
Of course, Sarah Palin is not actually (yet) running for president, unlike Bachmann. It’s still not clear that she will run for president. Palin’s in Iowa promoting the third or fourth “premiere” of the silly documentary about how she used to be considered competent and independent. It’s sort of sad. Dave Weigel’s comparing Palin to Norma Desmond.
Bristol Palin (promoting her book) says her mother has made a decision about the campaign. Which could mean an ill-advised decision to run, probably only to make all the people predicting that she won’t run look foolish. (If Sarah Palin is going to run for president, it will be out of spite, because she certainly doesn’t seem interested in campaigning.)
Barack Obama, meanwhile, is touring a factory. He will be in Bettendorf for like an hour or two. (There’s not much reason for a sitting president to campaign in Iowa, though I guess every electoral vote counts.)
After she watches the movie about herself again, Palin will be at some sort of cookout that will be closed to the press, so don’t expect a major announcement tonight.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
In "Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far," Sarah's daughter describes her first sexual encounter
Us Weekly published blips from Bristol Palin’s new biography this weekend, which describes in not-so-flattering detail the former V.P. candidate’s daughter’s coital relationship with baby daddy Levi Johnston. From the excerpts of “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far“:
The 20-year-old single mom reveals that, while drunk for the very first time, she lost her virginity to Levi Johnston during a camping trip.
Palin says she woke up alone in her tent, with no recollection as to what happened. Johnston, meanwhile, “talked with his friends on the other side of the canvas.”
Snarky blog The Superficial put it in more salacious terms. “Bristol Palin is accusing Levi Johnston of rape!” reads its headline, but that’s not really fair to Bristol. Sure, she calls Levi a “gnat” and quotes his reaction to the pregnancy news as “Better be a f***ing boy,” (which … classy!), but that’s not Bristol calling it rape. Saying she doesn’t remember the event isn’t saying she was unconscious for it, just wasted.
The statement is left ambiguous enough that if you held the story up to the light in one way — Alaskan girl gets drunk for the first time, boyfriend takes advantage — the colors slant toward an uncomfortable position for Levi, one that some may define as rape (if Bristol was incapacitated, say, and Levi wasn’t). But the wording is left just this side of vague enough (Mama Grizzly’s lawyers made sure of that, no doubt) that Levi can’t exactly call it libel. And Levi will get the chance to tell his own side of the story when his own book, “Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs” hits the stores. Though if his prose is as clunky as that mixed-metaphor title, I don’t know how anyone will be able to read it.
Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant
Shocking Twitter DMs reveal that Rebecca Mansour worships her boss and dislikes Mitt Romney
Tucker Carlson’s Internet Tendency has published a series of private Twitter messages sent by Rebecca Mansour, Sarah Palin’s closest advisor, to an unknown “online-only acquaintance.” The direct messages forwarded to the Daily Caller were sent in the summer of 2010, and they contain a number of unflattering descriptions of various figures in the Republican party and the conservative press. The Caller does provide the (partially redacted) original messages, in case you don’t want to rely solely on their interpretation of the material.
The DMs are not that outrageous or shocking, because we already all know that Palin and her inner-circle are paranoid and petty. It’s news that they hate Mitt Romney? The fact that Palin’s operation is an unprofessional cult of personality is public knowledge. But they’re still entertaining for anyone fascinated by Palin and her camp.
Mansour calls Palin “BigBoss” and Mitt Romney “Mittens.” She says “Evangelicals 4 Mitt” is a “fake org.” She calls blogger and CNN personality Erick Erickson “a total douchebag” and a “greasy dumb ass with a talent for self-promotion.” There is some outrage about Joe McGinniss, and an attempt to leak some semi-damaging stuff about Alaska radio host Shannyn Moore. [Update: Moore writes to say Mansour's claims are "not true, so not semi-damaging."]
And there are messages from when Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston were (briefly) back together, about how “heartbreaking” Bristol’s decision was to Sarah and Todd. (“Two words: Patti Davis. Okay three more: Ron Reagan Junior. Two more: Billy Carter. Doesn’t your family have one?”) That is the most embarrassing material, but even these messages are mostly harmless:
20:05:28: She’ll never publicly disown her daughter. She doesn’t have it in her. My mother would’ve never been able to do that either. Privately…
20:06:42: she will hold her at arm’s length. Even Thatcher was never able to disown her screw up son Mark. It’s a Mom thing.
I am not going to tut-tut about the journalistic ethics of this, because I read the story with great interest, and Sarah Palin’s closest advisor’s uncensored opinions about politics certainly seem newsworthy to me. Politico’s Ben Smith says he was offered this material last November, for a price, but Tucker Carlson says the Caller doesn’t pay for stories. The leaker seems to have done it for the lulz:
” I wasn’t serious back then. I was just … trolling you for fun. The Internet can be a boring place sometimes. :\,” the correspondent wrote.
I kind of can’t wait to see how Palin responds to this. She will probably call Tucker Carlson a child-molester on Facebook, for starters.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
I’m not going to lie, this is a very good investigative piece, but I honestly assumed that all of these kinds of ads are scams. It would be kind of weird if it turned out that someone was actually trying to give away a completely free weight-loss system via annoying Internet pop-ups.
"American Idol": The Whitest Wonder Bread Finale of Them All 
The White Moose: Sarah Palin In Alaska 
Bristol Palin Scores a Book Deal 
A match made on Craigslist adult services 
Can’t see the forest for the wood 
The things I carry 
When I lost the ability to type 
Pop art, the beaded edition 
The beautiful banality of high school 
The unemployed meet MacArthur’s tanks 
Demi’s last night out 
One day you’re in 
Pitch and catch 
