Palin-Johnston edition of 'Dancing With The Stars' in the works?

NY Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins has been following the news from Wasilla. Last week, she posted "My Boyfriend's Back," and this week she's posted "The Bad News Bears." In "Bad News Bears," Collins puts the engagement of Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin in the No Good Can Ever Come of This bin, writing:

... Let me go out on a limb and say that Sarah Palin was probably not happy to learn about her oldest daughter’s re-engagement to her baby-daddy via an eight-page cover spread in Us Weekly. ...

... This cannot be a welcome change of subject for the former Republican vice presidential nominee. She’s been on a political roll — raising money, making some prescient picks in the Republican primaries. She’s got a hot “mama grizzlies” video out, in which she touts a new wave of conservative women, rising up to protest ... the bad thing. Palin is really, really vague about exactly what the threat is. (The closest she gets is “the fundamental transformation of America.”) But there’s really no need to be specific because, as she says in the video, “Moms kinda just know when something’s wrong.”

The Bristol-Levi debacle, which might be a minor sideshow for another politician, looms larger for a Mama Grizzly. Inquiring minds might want to know why she didn’t sniff trouble, rise up on her hind legs and eviscerate that hockey-playing thug the first time he followed her daughter through the kitchen door.

Since Sarah Palin’s own fame seems grounded on little but a look and an attitude, you can’t blame the kids for thinking the same kind of thing would work for them. Bristol tried to become a celebrity unwed mother, the anti-teen-pregnancy spokeswoman for a sexy clothing line. Levi tried to make a name for himself as the celebrity unwed mother’s ex-boyfriend. It might have worked out, except that as a spokeswoman, Bristol turned out to have nothing to say. And Levi, who kept showing up on TV promising to tell “my side of the story” was close to sub-verbal.

But the conviction that celebrity is transferable, like chicken pox, is still going strong in Wasilla. ...

... Tune in tomorrow when ... What next? My money’s on an all-Palin-Johnston edition of “Dancing With the Stars.”