Conan O'Brien Forced To Apologize To Levi Johnston

On Friday, Conan O'Brien was forced to issue an apology to Levi Johnston, the 19year old father of Bristol Palin's baby, for a skit which featured claimed "Twitter" comments supposedly left by Johnston read by actor William Shatner as a comic poetry reading. In reality, the claimed "Twitter" comments were only comedy writing from one of the staff writers that O'Brien dismissed as being "counterfeit" and "written by a clever impostor".

After the Thursday show aired, an agent of Johnston's contacted the show demanding a retraction or they would sue, even though comedy material is supposed to have a far higher degree of constitutional protection than other types of commercial speech. NBC and the TONIGHT SHOW producers weren't very interested in a lawsuit, so they bent to the demands of Johnston's agents.

This is only the latest attempt by figures connected to former Governor Sarah Palin to pick a fight with late night comics. A few months ago, Sarah Palin herself deliberately picked a fight with David Letterman over a small joke gone wrong, falsely claiming that Letterman deliberately wanted to make sex jokes about their 15 year old daughter. A writer for Letterman had mistaken their 15 year old daughter for the older daughter, Bristol Palin. However, the joke was mostly about New York Yankee player, Alex Rodriques, who had been sexually linked to figures such as Madonna. Palin milked this fight with Letterman out for a few days, and Letterman was forced into several apologies before Palin finally gave up. For Palin, this presented yet another attempt to bleed publicity out of something and keep her name in the news. Yet recent polls prove that even among Republican voters, Palin has lost substantial support because of her antics.

Levi Johnston's family is out for publicity as well. They appeared on LARRY KING to throw up dirt about the breakup of Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin. And Levi is going to appear nude in PLAYGIRL very soon.

None of the Palin clan are camera shy it seems.