This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 18, 2009 - "Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them." -- T.S. Elliot
Listen, Bristol Palin has broken up with her boyfriend. She's reportedly "devastated" and the boyfriend, one Levi Johnston, complains he's not being allowed sufficient visiting privileges with the baby he fathered with her.
Johnston's sister, Mercede (sic) Johnston, reports that the couple separated because Bristol routinely referred to her prospective in-laws as "white trash" and did not want her baby, Tripp (double sic), exposed to them.
Question: Why do I know this? Why does an otherwise sensible middle-age man in St. Louis, Missouri, receive periodic updates on the romantic misadventures of a teenaged unwed mother in Wasilla, Alaska, and her high school-dropout former lover, neither of whom he's ever met?
The answer, of course, is that Bristol's mother is the governor of Alaska who ran unsuccessfully for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket last fall. Her 15 minutes of fame made Sarah Palin a household name and exposed the antics of her rather colorful extended family to the garish spotlight of the national press.
Fame has its privileges, but they come with a price. In politics, that price is often paid by the hapless innocents who line the stage behind the podium while the beaming candidate addresses an adoring crowd.
Initially, Palin appeared to be the exception to Jay Leno's axiom that "politics is just show business for ugly people." Occupants of the nation's barstools afforded her a generally warm reception, and the consensus among them was that she was something of a babe.
Upon further review, however, her campaign turned out to be longer on show biz than it was on substance. At one point, she was famously eviscerated by CBS news anchor Katie Couric.
At any rate, Palin's brush with notoriety inadvertently made fair game of a pregnant teenager who happened to be standing nearby. As her mother was a vocal proponent of the "abstinence-only" school of sex education favored by the right wing of her party, Bristol was exploited as the poster child for the deficiencies of that technique by political adversaries. In reality, she was just a kid who'd made a serious -- but thoroughly human -- mistake.
Of course, Bristol is not the only innocent bystander to be wounded by the celebrity of another. Caroline Kennedy, for instance, was mentioned as a possible replacement for Hillary Clinton when Clinton left her Senate seat to become the secretary of state.
Kennedy is a socially prominent, financially independent philanthropist who had distanced herself from the political fray. Under normal circumstances, the appointment of such a person to fill an interim post would have been seen as a high-minded choice by the governor.
But because she hails from America's pre-eminent political dynasty, Kennedy's possible appointment immediately generated intense scrutiny. Her qualifications were challenged, her character was questioned, and speculation about ulterior motives ran rife. Ultimately, she withdrew from consideration.
Then again, were it not for her famous relatives, she probably never would have become a potential candidate in the first place.
John McCain's 24-year-old daughter, Meghan, is now a columnist at the Daily Beast and is currently making the rounds on the cable news circuit.
Interviewed on MSNBC by liberal talk show host Rachel Maddow, McCain came across as a bright, earnest youngster advocating on behalf of political tolerance. During the course of conversation, she casually confessed to a total ignorance of the national economy. The only thing that distinguished her from millions of other recent college graduates was the fact of her father's celebrity. It would seem that prominence can be an inherited characteristic.
For that matter, Hillary Clinton kicked off her own political career with a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. For most of us, serving as the junior senator from New York would not be an entry-level job option.
But despite the perks enjoyed by relatives of the famous, the perils remain. When the press is looking, private foibles have a bad habit of becoming public scandal. Billy Carter was quietly drinking his way through life until his brother was elected president. Due to events not of his making, a harmless drunk was subsequently transformed into a national buffoon. For every Paris Hilton, there's a sex tape lurking somewhere.
The legendary 14th-century archer, William Tell, is said to have won his place in history by shooting an apple off the top of his son's head. Does anybody remember the kid's name?
M.W. Guzy is a retired St. Louis cop who currently works for the city Sheriff's Department. His column appears weekly in the Beacon.