I'm not, by nature, a hater. My writing doesn't usually include personal attacks. Unlike some poison pen scribes who hold nothing back while they gleefully and snarkily lambaste others, I usually try to maintain an even keel, sometimes using humor or sarcasm to get my point across. So it's atypical for me to feel compelled to give two narcissistic, clueless fathers of young children a verbal vivisection, to hurl names at them and to beseech them to just shut their traps.
I'm talking to you Jon Gosselin and Levi Johnston.
We all have problems. We all have arguments and disagreements with our significant others, our parents, our in-laws, if we're married. Life isn't always fair and doesn't always go smoothly. People to whom we're related -- by marriage or blood -- are inevitably going to disappoint us at one time or another. But the two of you are fathers of small children. Those kids are going to grow up and eventually read all the smack you've been dishing about their mothers and/or their families and realize that you tried to enhance your own public relations standing by airing their family's dirty laundry in public. While Jon is acting as though he's on spring break, cavorting with bikinied, barely legal gals at a Las Vegas pool party, Levi is holding up a photographic likeness of his son's grandmother in front of his face -- with Sarah Palin's eyes cut out -- in photos which accompany his glossy tell-all tale in the pages of the October issue of Vanity Fair.
First, I'll address Jon, who we all know has eight young children and has, for the past several years, co-starred in the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 with his soon-to-be ex-wife Kate. After the couple publicly announced their split this spring, the two, at first, said they were going to deal with one another amicably, for the sake of their children, and take turns staying in their Pennsylvania home with the kids. At that point, I had a great deal of sympathy for the couple, whose marital woes were being exploited by TLC for the sake of ratings, at the expense of the Gosselin family. I even wrote a sympathetic column about them.
Then those photos began cropping up. Of Jon. With a series of young women, including the 22-year-old daughter of the plastic surgeon who did Kate's tummy tuck for free on their TV show. Jon's been out partying, at all hours of the night, according to media reports. I read that he'd gotten himself a Manhattan bachelor pad while his children still live in Pennsylvania, not exactly a quick scoot down the road which would make it easy to attend parent-teacher conferences or kids' soccer games. I've read news stories about how Jon has been cutting deals to make celebrity appearances at parties and casinos for money, including a soiree he recently hosted at a Las Vegas hotel pool.
And while his wife Kate has done nationally televised interviews and has been relatively restrained with her criticism of her children's father (except for complaining about Jon's choice of babysitters), Jon says it's time to tell HIS story. After Jon appeared in public -- and on camera, with his kids -- in a T-shirt which said, "Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies" on the front, he's gone to ABC's news program Primetime saying that Kate verbally and emotionally abused him during their 10-year marriage and then, according to the ABC previews, may have dished dirt about whether Kate's been canoodling with the family's body guard. Way to be classy Jon Gosselin! Taking the high road about your children's mother!
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Levi Johnston, whose name you know only because he was once the fiance of Sarah Palin's eldest daughter Bristol and fathered a child with Bristol when the girl was 17 -- is using his son's grandparents as a jumping off point, a diving board if you will, to help catapult him into the epicenter of pop culture . . . Read more here, including how Levi's been talking about Sarah and Todd Palin's sex life.
