In an fascinating development for Sarah Palin fans, readers of People magazine, and people who think it’s best to believe a woman when she claims the infant she’s carrying is her biological child, Levi Johnston has publicly apologized to the Palin family for lying about them. Johnston tells People magazine that he “publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true.”

“Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize.”

Bristol added her own statement Tuesday saying, “Part of co-parenting is creating healthy and honest relationships between the parents. Tripp one day needs to know the truth and needs to know that even if a mistake is made the honorable thing to do is to own up to it.”

Levi

It would seem obvious to any observer of human behavior that a disgruntled, publicity-hungry former fiancé is not the most reliable source for information about anyone. Caution is doubly warranted when the information offered is about a high-profile, controversial politician.

Unfortunately, the media didn’t exercise the same level of skepticism a normal person would exercise when listening to gossip about his or her neighbor. Vanity Fair published a piece entitled “Me and Mrs. Palin,” in which Johnston “turns a number of commonly held beliefs about the former governor – the purportedly loving wife, devoted mother, and prolific hunter – upside down.”Some choice — now retracted — excerpts:

For “Me and Mrs. Palin,” Johnston tells Vanity Fair his story about life with the Palin family—with whom he lived for two months after the election—over the course of his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Bristol. He turns a number of commonly held beliefs about the former governor—the purportedly loving mother, devoted wife, and prolific hunter—upside down…

Even before Palin became John McCain’s running mate, she seemed worried about what a grandchild would do to her political career. According to Johnston, she had a plan for how to handle her daughter’s unexpected pregnancy.

Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret—nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. She told me that once Bristol had the baby she and Todd would adopt him. That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Sarah kept mentioning this plan. She was nagging—she wouldn’t give up. She would say, “So, are you gonna let me adopt him?” We both kept telling her we were definitely not going to let her adopt the baby. I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.


Over at CBS, Johnston repeated his assertion that Palin routinely called her son, Trig, “retarded.” Reporting Johnston’s claims uncritically might seem to be simple journalism, but would he have received any press if he had repeatedly asserted that Palin was a devoted wife and mother? At least if the media had made a huge fuss about Palin’s great parenting skills there would have been more than one person testifying in Palin’s favor.

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Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan, Palin conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, had a field day with Johnston, even anointing him “The Real Rogue of 2009.”

And what a story he has told.

It is as follows: Palin is a total fraud. She is not what she says she is. According to someone who lived with her for years, who fathered her grandson and fell in love with her daughter, the last thing she is is what her followers blindly believe: authentic.

She’s a phony, according to Johnston, a negligent mother, a devious plotter, an alienated wife. Far from a “real American”, she is layer upon layer of political artifice, designed cynically to appeal to pro-lifers and feminists, evangelicals and populists, independents and rock-ribbed Republicans, all laid on top of a fanatically narcissistic sociopathy.

And on what did Sullivan base this? Well, the boy’s just so gosh-darn convincing! Sullivan briefly raises the idea that Johnston could be lying, but quickly dismisses it, because “Johnston is the only family member who actually knew and lived with Palin and has broken ranks,” and “he deserves at least as fair a hearing as she [Palin] had. . . . “

Who else did Sullivan expect to break ranks? Piper? As for receiving a fair hearing, interviews with CBS, Vanity Fair, and Andrew Sullivan would seem to be as fair a hearing as one could expect.

But guess what? It was all a lie. If the media hadn’t been quite so eager to pillory Palin — to destroy the only real threat to their beloved Obama and the miraculous narrative of his wondrous rise — perhaps they would’ve exercised some due diligence. Instead, they have egg all over the faces again.

Here’s Sullivan’s conclusion:

What can we make of this?

It’s unverifiable – but no less so than Palin’s autobiography. And compared with her bizarre, constantly changing stories and multiple lies about any number of empirically indisputable facts, Johnston’s monosyllabic yeses and nos and plain English eye-witness accounts that have never changed are like oases of sanity and calm.

When I got to meet Johnston, I asked him simply how he seemed so calm as a nineteen year old up against an international celebrity with millions of dollars and every pimp in the “publishing” and political industries trying to suck up to her. “Because I’m tellin’ the truth,” was his simple, and immediate answer.

I can’t know who’s telling the truth for sure. But after a decade of frauds enabled and abetted by political corruption and media cowardice, Palin might well be the biggest fraud of all, perpetrating a hoax so massive no one can quite see it.

But let’s let Levi have the last word:

“So to the Palin family in general and to Sarah Palin in particular, please accept my regrets and forgive my youthful indiscretion,” Johnston says in the statement. “I hope one day to restore your trust.”

Oops.