Bristol Palin

How you react to Bristol Palin's new reality show on Lifetime, Life's a Tripp, will probably be determined by what you think about her mother. But let's try to forget that she's the daughter of the former GOP vice presidential candidate and consider Life's a Tripp purely as a TV show: On that basis, well, the series, premiering Tuesday, is not very interesting and you probably wouldn't watch if she weren't who she is. So who, exactly, is...

When we first saw Bristol Palin in that glittery, gray sparkle schoolmarm suit on Monday night's 11th-season premiere show of Dancing With the Stars , we sent up a collective sigh. C'mon, Bristol. Really? But then the 19-year-old daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin ripped off the skirt suit and danced the cha-cha-cha to "Mama Told Me Not to Come" in a fire-engine red tiered dress. (That, by the way, made her legs look phenomenal.) The look was wonderfully classy, yet demure - although we will say the makeup was a bit harsh.

Quick - how much do you make? We write SideShow for free. We don't make anything. OK, the occasional jalapeño banana radish fudge Tastykake or half-eaten pretzel. But . . . some people make lots. Take Alycia Lane , the former Philly news anchor now in L.A. We know how much she made once upon a time. She's embroiled in a verrry interesting civil lawsuit against (among others) former colleague and e-mail peruser Larry Mendte . Amid the hundreds of pages of her deposition is a factoid not often confirmed in the world of TV news: her salary.

I BEG TO DIFFER with the scolds who are criticizing the media for focusing on Bristol Palin's out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And I beg to differ with pundits who claim that the controversy is a distraction from more important issues. Because the uproar isn't about Bristol Palin. It isn't about whether Sarah Palin failed as a mother; only insufferable right-wing partisans make those moral equations, and they're silenced by political considerations in this case. It's about the fact that Gov. Palin's ideology failed, that abstinence-only sex education failed even in her own family.

That marked-down-from-$330,000, five-bedroom, three-car-garaged house Bristol Palin scored in the Phoenix suburb of Maricopa for $172,000? Wonder no more. Seems the 20-year-old mom is planning to enroll next year at Arizona State University, to study broadcasting. Andres Cano , an officer of the university's Downtown Young Democrats told TMZ.com the Dems will welcome her "with open arms," adding that "getting a college degree is a nonpartisan issue. " Zachary Ziebarth , prez of the Downtown College Republicans, also is waving the love flag but notes that it's not unanimous: "Facebook has already been going crazy with status updates of excitement, mixed feelings, and nonacceptance.

BEFORE the anti-Tattle forces start massing at the border to send their bile-infused hate mail, let's get a few things straight. 1) The Star is not always the most reputable of sources. 2) Bristol Palin is not the most important person in the world - that is why she is leading the gossip column. 3) The Philadelphia Daily News does not consider this the most important story of the day, which is why it's on Page 36. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's the big non-news: Bristol Palin and babydaddy Levi Johnston are reportedly over.

SOMETIMES, a teen can't just say no. That's the hard-won wisdom of young Bristol Palin, daughter of former vice-presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "Everyone should be abstinent, but it's not realistic," the 18-year-old told Fox News in her first interview since son Tripp was born Dec. 27. Sex "is more and more accepted among kids my age. " Kind of sad that her mom campaigned for governor in 2006 on an abstinence platform, huh? Bristol is engaged to her baby's father, Levi Johnston, but said she wished they had waited to have kids "like 10 years so I could have a job and education and my own house.

CONGRATULATIONS to Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston . Those crazy kids are getting married. Bristol broke the news to Us Weekly , seemingly before she broke the news to her parents. Bristol, 19, told Us she found the idea of telling her mother "intimidating and scary. " But Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd , said in a statement on NBC's "Today" show that they want what's best for their children and that Bristol believes in "redemption and forgiveness.

WHEN JOHN McCain talked about job creation back in 2008, he probably wasn't thinking about Bristol Palin. Still, the man who tapped Sarah Palin as his running mate three years ago could probably claim some credit for the apparently unstoppable career of the former Alaska governor's 20-year-old daughter, whose latest gig, a 10-episode "reality" show on A&E's Bio channel, was announced yesterday. But then McCain might be just as happy to have been left out of the Bio statement, which hailed Palin as "the most famous single mother in America" (yes, even more famous than the ones on "16 and Pregnant")

Heads up! Mercede Johnston has a nude pictorial in the new Playboy! Who? Sadie, as she's known, is a celeb because she's the sister of Levi Johnston , who's a celeb because he had a baby with Bristol Palin , who is famous because her mom, Sarah Palin ran for the vice presidency. "Bristol is very manipulative," Sadie says of Levi's ex-gf. "She'd use sex to get her way on many things. " Surely not. Bristol advocates sexual abstinence before marriage.

It's all a big, fat, stinking lie, world. We refer to the idiotic #BaldforBieber Twitter hoax, telling millions that (a) Justin Bieber has cancer and has lost all his hair due to chemo (with Photoshopped photo of bald Biebs); and that (b) fans worldwide are shaving their noggins in solidarity. May not a single Bieber belieber be taken in by these trolls, and may all have the heads of hair they prefer. One person's LOL is another's cruelty.   Click three times . . . Some sayings have immortality thrust upon them.

The White House be darned! Onetime GOP veep candidate Sarah Palin will eschew politics in her next book, focusing instead on that higher art, cooking. "Our family is writing a book on fitness and self-discipline focusing on where we get our energy and balance as we still eat our beloved homemade comfort foods!" Palin, 48, said Tuesday in an e-mail to People mag. Calling the yet-to-be titled tome a "unique and motivating book," Palin made a solemn vow. "We promise you what we do works and allows a fulfilling quality of life and sustenance anyone can enjoy," she said.

OK. Guess whom "SideShow" is imitating. "Beeeeeep. Beeeeeep, beeeeeep. " The Road Runner ? Star Wars ' R2-D2 ? My Mother the Car ? No, no, and no. We're channeling the bleeps on American Idol now that Nicki Minaj , who can bench-press 350 pounds of foul language, is a judge on the show. Apparently, the feud between her and Mariah Carey (also a new judge) has been upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane. A trending video on YouTube shows Minaj on Tuesday, chucking *%#s at Carey, who may well be chucking back, though only Minaj is audible.

Multiple baby daddy Levi Johnston has asserted his fiendish potency once again. Us mag reports that he and yearlong gf Sunny Oglesby have welcomed daughter Breeze Beretta Johnston up in Wasilla, Alaska. BBJ is, let's see, oh, yeah, half-sister to Johnston son Tripp , fostered with Bristol Palin , daughter of inspirational speaker and former political candidate Sarah . Levi says he's trying to get custody of Tripp. Yeah, right. BTW, Bristol starts on Dancing With the Stars: All-Stars next week.

Miley Cyrus , 19, is troubled by folks who say she's too young to marry. "Life is too short not to be with the person you want to be with," Liam Hemsworth 's fiancee tells Marie Claire. Miley, who on Monday debuted a new blond hairdo, says marriage is a state of mind. "I don't really care about the wedding or the piece of paper as much as I do the promise we've made to each other," says the warbler, who admits she was totally shocked by Liam's sudden proposal. She digs the ring "because it doesn't look like anything else I wear.

"The lies are over now," writes New Yorker reporter Jonah Lehrer in a mea culpa on Jim Romenesko 's blog admitting he manufactured out of whole cloth a series of quotes he attributed to rock-and-roll bard Bob Dylan in his acclaimed science book Imagine: How Creativity Works . "I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down," writes Lehrer, who has resigned from the New Yorker. "I will do my best to correct the record and ensure that my misquotations and mistakes are fixed.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It's easy to make fun of the Palins' penchant for playing themselves on television — I've done it often enough myself. But while it was a little odd to have a former vice presidential candidate at a poolside party at the Beverly Hilton last week to promote her husband's appearance on an upcoming NBC "reality" competition, "Stars Earn Stripes," and only a few days later, at the same hotel, have ABC introduce her oldest daughter to the Television Critics Association as one of the returning "all-star" competitors on "Dancing With the Stars," we're in an odd time, and in an odd place.

ABC has announced the chorus line for its 15th season of Dancing With the Stars , which will begin in September. It's a field made up of previous contestants that the network is labeling an "all-stars" edition. A couple of things leap out of that news flash. It implies that up until now, the show has been exercising a great deal of latitude in its definition of "stars. " And the fact that it is now recycling participants suggests that we may finally have exhausted America's vast storehouse of random and bizarre quasi-celebrities.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — You never know who you'll meet at the Beverly Hilton, the hotel where Whitney Houston died, John Edwards met his mistress and where TV critics congregate for a couple of weeks in the summer. We're used to seeing stars — it's why we come here, after all — but we're not used to seeing Sarah Palin. The former governor of Alaska was easily the biggest draw Tuesday evening at a poolside NBC cocktail party to promote several of its new shows, including "Stars Earn Stripes," the military-themed competition series in which her husband, Todd, will appear starting Aug. 13. Wearing a dark olive wrap dress, killer heels and a fashionable pair of shades, Palin looked perfectly at home, cheerfully posing for pictures and chatting with reporters a few feet from her husband, who'd earlier insisted to me that the Palins hadn't yet passed the Kardashians as "reality" regulars.

It looks as though Lindsay Lohan has triggered a workplace-safety issue. Two Hollywood unions are scrutinizing Lindsay's TV movie "Liz & Dick" after the actress tweeted that she was exhausted because of long production days. That would be too much Liz and not enough Dick. Larry A. Thompson, producer of the Lifetime movie starring Lilo as Elizabeth Taylor, said Wednesday that no violations were found in the SAG-AFTRA review. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists confirmed that its representatives visited the production.