Remember Sarah Palin? Of course you don’t – which means you’re less likely to remember her daughter Bristol.

So here’s a brief recap. Sarah Palin was the woman who would have become vice-president of America, if only a) she wasn’t colossally stupid, b) her main hobby didn’t involved blasting holes in the side of reindeers with a shotgun and c) her teenage daughter Bristol hadn’t got knocked up by a redneck at an inopportune moment.

And now it’s been revealed that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, the father of her illegitimate baby, have split up. Please respond with the appropriate ambivalence.

Forget the economic meltdown and everyone losing their jobs, what really sucks about 2009 is that there just aren’t as many pregnant teenagers as there were last year. True, Octomom‘s doing her bit – if you divide her age by the number of babies she’s had then technically she’s a two-year-old – but there just isn’t the same visceral thrill that you get when a teenage girl accidentally gets pregnant with a baby she’s not capable of looking after.

And that goes double when their parents are trying to paint themselves as religious pillars of virtue. It’s what happened when Jamie Lynn Spears got pregnant and ruined her mother’s shot at writing a parenting guide, and it’s what happened when underage Bristol Palin got pregnant and ruined her mother Sarah Palin’s shot at becoming the vice-president of America.

Well, if we’re being accurate, the pregnancy and the fact that Sarah Palin would have obviously been a terrible vice-president ruined her shot at becoming vice-president. And the fact that her speaking voice makes her sound like a surprised penguin having a stroke. But you get the idea.

Still, at least Bristol Palin was engaged to Levi Johnston, the hockey-playing redneck father of her baby. So, no matter what happened to its family politically, the baby would be brought up in a secure, loving home by two people who were utterly devoted to each other.

Except, you guessed it, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have decided to split up. AP reports:

Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby. Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided “a while ago” to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family’s home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.

Oh, like any of this matters now. It’s not like Sarah Palin is ever going to hold a role in senior government ever again, so it’s not really a big deal if Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston split up or stay together or both turn gay or announce that the moment their baby was born they swatted it into a ceiling fan with a tennis racquet. In fact, we don’t even know why this is news.

Oh, wait. Yes we do. It’s because it’s funny.

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