"I will not enter into a public feud with Madame Callas, since I am aware she has a far greater competence at that sort of thing than I have," said opera’s Rudolf Bing of the combative diva many years ago.

Levi Johnston – are you listening?

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Don’t kill me here on this eve of the Labor Day weekend, but I am actually beginning to feel a bit sorry for Sarah Palin. At least in the matter of her estranged, almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston. This kid just can’t keep his mouth shut. He is now bent on his future career in public and considering taking his pants off for Playgirl.

As you probably know, Levi has given a big interview to Vanity Fair, in which he says – among other things – that the ex-governor of Alaska wanted to keep her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy a secret. And, after the baby was born, adopt it as her own.

This tale, of course, plays negatively for Sarah Palin’s public image, her immediate legend, if you will. All of which is a mix of fact and fiction, propagated by her, her champions and her enemies. She is pal-ing around with the bitch goddess, Fame.

But people will believe what they want to believe. Like a big movie star, Sarah now inhabits a world both cosseted and brutally exposed, removed from reality in many basic ways. She is a creature of her handlers and of us – we who compulsively still look in on her.

That said, Sarah wouldn’t have been the first mother in history to hope to protect a teenage daughter. This happens in lots of towns, big and little. And rumor goes that it has happened a few times in Hollywood, to famous stars and offspring. I just don’t see the wish to protect a teenage child as terribly evil or Machiavellian. Sarah Palin could play her well-worn "Good Mom" card and even I would buy it. It’s very "Peyton Place.

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Levi keeps talking about how he loves his child and all that, but he is on the fast track to not seeing the kid at all if he continues as of now. He complains he doesn’t see enough of his baby boy. (Pose for Playgirl, you guy, and find out how much more daddy-time you get.)

Honestly, we can’t thank Sen. John McCain enough for introducing us to this snow-bound, low-rent version of "God’s Little Acre." It’s been fun.

That said, Levi Johnston looked totally out of his element out on the town with comic Kathy Griffin a few weeks ago. Then he was interviewed by Larry King and it turned into an hour of Larry’s trying to get blood from a stone.

This boy is attractive in a soon-to-be-doughy way and he has a sweet manner, but I don’t think Bristol tossed away endless nights of effervescent conversation when she broke up with him.

Now, her mother is nobody to mess with. There is a Medusa behind those Foster Grants; an atmosphere of Faye Dunaway barking in "Mommie Dearest" – "Don’t fuck with me, fellas. This ain’t my first time at the rodeo!"