Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska governor Sarah Palin did two morning show interviews today, all to promote the cause of premarital abstinence. Bristol was rather famously unmarried and pregnant during the general election, and she gave birth to son Tripp in December. Since Tripp’s birth, Bristol and Tripp’s father Levi Johnston have broken off their engagement and Levi has been engaged in a publicity campaign that seems to be geared towards making the Palin family look horrible. Levi has claimed that Gov. Palin and Bristol won’t let him spend time with Tripp, and there’s a rumor that Levi wants to sell a million-dollar book about the Palins.

So there’s several questions that any half-decent interviewer would ask Bristol Palin. Stuff like “Should an unwed single mother promote premarital abstinence?” and “So what in the world is going on with Levi?” Both Today’s Matt Lauer and Good Morning America’s Christopher Cuomo took their shots at Bristol. It was enough to make me feel badly for her, but then I remembered that she’s actually got a job promoting this stuff publicly. Bristol was named the teen ambassador for the national campaign to raise awareness about the consequences of teen pregnancy” for the Candie’s Foundation. In her interviews, she only wanted to talk about abstinence, not her own stuff:

Bristol Palin promoted sexual abstinence for her fellow teens in dual appearances Wednesday on ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today – prompting her interviewers on both shows to question how she can preach something she obviously didn’t practice.

While declining to discuss what methods of birth control she might have used, Palin, 18, told GMA’s Christopher Cuomo, “Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only … 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy.” She also acknowledged that abstinence is “difficult.”

To Today’s Matt Lauer who asked what message she was sending teens by talking about not having babies while she was holding her sleeping son, Tripp, in her arms, Palin said, “I’m just here trying to tell teens this is a really hard job.”

The TV appearances were keyed to Palin’s new role as the Candie’s Foundation’s teen ambassador for a national campaign to raise awareness about the consequences of teen pregnancy.

On Levi Johnston
Cuomo and Lauer both asked Palin about her former fiancé – and the father of her child– Levi Johnston, who appeared on Tyra Banks’ syndicated talk show as well as CBS’s The Early Show, on which he spoke about premarital sex and made claims that the Palin family has not allowed him be alone with his son.

“I’m not here to talk about my personal life,” Palin told Lauer, though she did say, with no further explanation, even when asked for it, “I’d love Levi to be part of [Tripp’s] life.”

She had the nearly exact same words for Cuomo, too, saying, “I’d love Levi to be a part of [Tripp’s] life, and I know he will be. Every child needs a father.”

[From People Magazine]

I actually think Bristol might have a point with her appearances – she just might be a powerful cautionary tale for young girls, but maybe not in the way she intended. Instead of harping on about how abstinence is the only way, perhaps she could just hold up baby Tripp and start talking about how screwed up her life is now that she is a mother. It’s really obvious she hasn’t practiced what she is now preaching, but if she took a more honest and conciliatory voice, she really could be an effective ambassador for not just abstinence, but telling young girls to respect themselves, wait to have sex until they’re ready, and stay in school. And for the love of God, “condom” is not a dirty word.