Damn It, I Can’t Help Myself

The ongoing squabble between Sarah Palin and Levi Johnston is more than a little bit like the Britney Spears – Justin Timberlake divorce. You know that you’re wasting your time by pursuing it. You know that it is utterly and totally irrelevant to anything that even remotely matters in your life — even if you are a political junkie. But somehow, when Vanity Fair publishes its interview with Johnston, called “Me and Mrs. Palin,” you can’t help yourself any more than you can stop that impulsive upgrade to a super-sized order of fries, and you hate yourself afterwards for doing it. But you are somehow compelled to go look and see what’s up.

And Vanity Fair rewards you by giving you exactly what you went there for, just like a condescending pornographer or drug pusher, and you take it even though you despise yourself for it. “Oh! You want this, don’t you? Here you go, you gossipy bitches. Yeah, you know you want it. You need it, don’t you, bitches? Come on, now, who’s your daddy? Now fork over the dough and patronize our advertisers!”

Come on, you know Andrew Sullivan has a big old pup tent down in his shorts because of this.

The picture, by the way, appears to be the galley of what actually appears in the magazine; I’ve hotlinked to the magazine’s website to generate the picture here. Presumptively, the image is copyrighted by Vanity Fair Magazine. It also will serve only to drive traffic to the magazine’s website which attracts eyeballs to the magazine’s website and will no doubt increase sales of the magazine itself, so Condé Nast attorneys — please do take just a moment to think about the fact that I’m doing your client a favor by using the image here before you send me any cease and desist letters. Besides, it’s fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 as commentary so if you sue me you’ll lose and I don’t have any money for you to collect anyway. Just leave me alone.