My latest Pajamas Media column is called, ""Levi Johnston Is Trash (no offense, trash)"." Here's an excerpt from the column:

If Sarah Palin had been a Democrat, no show more credible than Jerry Springer’s would be giving Levi Johnston a chance to spread scurrilous gossip about her.

Why would they? Levi Johnston is a 19-year-old high school dropout whose mother is in jail for selling Oxycontin. Johnston’s sister Mercede? She got her pockets filled by the trashy Star magazine to talk about the Palin family. Read that description of the Johnston family and you tell me if you’d trust any of them to so much as mind the till at your child’s lemonade stand for five minutes.

Setting that aside, Levi Johnston isn’t Sarah Palin’s friend, her husband, her business partner, her adviser, or even a staffer. To the contrary, he’s a 19-year-old kid who got to spend a little time around the family and their daughter. Do you really think Sarah Palin is spilling her deepest, darkest secrets in front of Levi? Do you think she’d talk about divorcing her husband in front of him? Do you think she’d call her son a “retard” in his presence? Common sense says “no.”

Of course, anything’s possible and common sense isn’t always common. But if someone’s lying, who do you think it’s more likely to be? The woman who knowingly chose to have and raise a child with Down syndrome or the kid who parlayed being the source of malicious gossip about Sarah Palin into a pistachio commercial? Who’s lying? A woman who made a reputation for herself fighting corruption in politics or a kid who now refers to himself as Ricky Hollywood?

Once again, you can read it all here.