Unbeknownst to Levi Johnston, Lawrence O'Donnell had planned a special series of hardball questions to quiz the would-be Wasilla mayor. On MSNBC's The Last Word, the host asked Johnston the same series of questions that Katie Couric used to flummox then-vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Beginning with what the soon-to-be reality TV star reads (Wasilla's paper The Frontiersman), O'Donnell bombarded Johnston with queries about whether he supported a moratorium on foreclosures, whether evolution should be taught as a stand-alone theory in schools, and whether the United State needs to increase its troop levels in the cross-border war with Afghanistan.

Johnston quickly folded and said "I don't know" to multiple policy questions. But O'Donnell kept pressing on. The entertaining bit arguably slipped into condescension when, on the last question pertaining to Pakistan, the host dryly noted, "Frontiersman doesn't have much to say about that, right..."

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Erik Hayden