The XX Factor: What women really think.

Bristol Palin Hopes "That People Learn From My Story and Just, I Dunno, Prevent Teen Pregnancy, I Guess"

Bristol Palin spoke to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren about life as an 18-year-old mom. She looks beautiful (what cheekbones!) but nervous, her eyes darting as she delivers clipped responses—far from the rambling poetry of now-Grandma Palin. It's unclear why Bristol agreed to the interview (which, in true maverick fashion, she didn't tell her mom about until the day before). She doesn't seem to have any clear message she's out to deliver, and her thoughts on teen pregnancy—ostensibly one of the topics of the interview—are frustratingly vague:

I wish [getting pregnant] would happen in like 10 years so I could have a job and an education and be, like, prepared and have my own house and stuff. ... I hope that people learn from my story and just, I dunno, prevent teen pregnancy I guess."

Right. But prevent it how? And wait 10 years for what? To have sex? Or just wait to get pregnant, by, you know, using birth control? Bristol "doesn't want to get into detail about that," but says she thinks expecting abstinence is "not realistic at all." Van Susteren doesn't probe, and in a second clip featuring Gov. Sarah Palin, we find out why. Cutting Bristol out of the interview now that the real star is in the room, Van Susteren asks the governor:

Isn't the bigger story or the bigger issue how important it is for families to pitch in? It's not just an issue of abstinence. ... When you have the conversation about abstinence, I almost feel bad because there's this wonderful child here [presumably she means Tripp, not his mother], so talking about abstinence ... it doesn't sound very nice.

Well, it's not always a journalist's job to be nice. If Bristol wants people to learn from her story and to prevent teen pregnancy, as she explicitly said, then Van Susteren owes it to the audience to ask the obvious follow-up: How?