Ethiopian Review

Levi Johnston’s new article in Vanity Fair, in which he dishes all manner of dirt against his almost-mother-in-law Sarah Palin, is a real tour de force of family dysfunction, private dirt, and all-around personal contempt.

Much of the article is dedicated to telling people that the real Sarah Palin is not the wholesome, down-home mother that the public has been told about. According to Johnston, she doesn’t pay attention to her kids, didn’t work hard as governor, has an unhappy marriage with Todd, and rarely attends church. But perhaps the cruelest cut of all for this Republican superstar…she doesn’t hunt and fish, either:

People think that Sarah likes hunting, fishing, and camping, but she doesn’t. She says she goes hunting and lives off animal meat — I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen her touch a fishing pole. She had a gun in her bedroom and one day she asked me to show her how to shoot it. I asked her what kind of gun it was, and she said she didn’t know, because it was in a box under her bed.

Johnston also says that Palin’s own family would laugh at her disastrous interviews on TV — and even Palin herself privately knew she did a horrible job:

We all knew that she didn’t know what to say on TV, and that when she was reading a script she was a phony. I’d be sitting with the family in front of the TV and we’d be disgusted watching her. Her family never said anything terrible, but they shook their heads with disappointment. And there were times where we’d sit there and pretty much laugh at things she said. I laughed every time I saw Tina Fey imitate her. She sounded just like her. I think the kids thought it was funny, too. There were also times when Sarah would be at home and watch herself on the screen and say she did very bad.

Johnston also talks about how Palin was embittered by the national campaign defeat, and immediately began talking about resigning the governorship so she could make more money. But what really got her going, he says, is when she heard about McCain staffers trashing her — against her own belief that she was the real star of that ticket:

But when she began to hear McCain’s people accusing her of being the reason they lost, she decided to retaliate. At home, she would say that she couldn’t believe they had backstabbed her. She couldn’t believe they were saying she lost the election for McCain. She would say things like “I Brought everything to the table and “The majority people were out there voting because of me!” She definitely thought she was running for president.