I'm starting to feel sorry for Levi Johnston

It isn't that I have any great fondness for jocks who knock up their girlfriends, and refer to themselves as "f'in rednecks". All too often it's the girls who are left to face the consequences of what to do with a pregnancy that results out of ignorance or a sense of invincibility. And I can't imagine what it must be like to be the latest incarnation of World's Most Famous Underage Pregnant High School Girl when a few weeks ago you were just a high school girl from Alaska. But there's something grotesque about a political party that not so long ago was excoriating an adult fictional character for having a baby out of wedlock, and is today lauding the virtues of a shotgun marriage between two teenagers.

"Now I'm gonna be president, you understand? It's owed to me! I was a POW, understand? And no damn high school punk who couldn't keep it in his pants is gonna stand in my way! Got it?"

I've been feeling badly for Bristol Palin for a few days now, ever since her mother decided to squelch rumors stemming from her bizarre behavior as she went into labor last April by announcing Bristol's pregnancy to the world. I wonder just how long ago this marriage had been planned. I suspect it was over the weekend. And here are these two kids, who were probably told as part of their abstinence-only sex education that condoms don't work, being not only forced to marry before they're out of high school, but also forced to be props for Bristol's mother's political aspirations. Poor Bristol has no choice since she was born into this family, but I'm wondering if young Levi is asking himself now why on earth he didn't just go into the bathroom with a stack of Penthouse magazines and a bottle of baby oil.

Watching the spectacle of the family values party that's been pontificating about chastity for over two decades now lauding the virtues of teen pregnancy, combined with the train wreck that John McCain and Sarah Palin are making of these kids' lives, I have to wonder if perhaps it's all deliberate. After all, is there a better argument for chastity than to keep oneself from ending up being a poster child for a bunch of religious lunatics?