Those of us who hoped that we had heard the last from Gov. Palin (at least until the next presidential election) were disappointed when she went on the warpath this week against the media for what she called inaccurate reports about her daughter Bristol. As you know, Bristol recently gave birth to a son, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, making Palin a grandmother.

But when the media mentioned that Bristol is still not married to the baby’s father, Levi Johnston, and that both of them dropped out of high school, Palin went ballistic, calling up People Magazine, the Associated Press, and the Anchorage Daily News. Palin is claiming that Bristol and Levi are not high school dropouts, because they both plan on finishing up high school at some point in the future.

I guess that means that I can start claiming that I’m a doctor because I plan to go to medical school. The simple truth is that both Levi and Bristol dropped out of high school. Levi even started work as an electrical apprentice. He is enrolled in a correspondence program to get his GED, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a dropout. It really isn’t a big deal, and I sincerely hope that they get their high school degrees as soon as possible.

But what’s ironic is that by making a fuss about it, Palin has again shown that she is a disaster dealing with the media. What would have been a largely ignored detail is now a big story, because she made it one.

It probably wouldn’t even have been mentioned in the first place if Palin wasn’t so vocal about “family values”. When someone with a “holier than thou” attitude ends up with an out-of-wedlock grandson born to parents who dropped out of high school, of course it is going to be mentioned in the media. Attacking the media for the report is just stupid. And fighting back by claiming that they are not high school dropouts shows only that you have a tenuous grasp of the truth.

UPDATE: Levi Johnston had to quit his job, because he doesn’t have a high school diploma.