Last week, a rumor made the rounds in the Alaskan blogosphere: Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston were getting back together. They would announce their engagement, then they would wait a couple weeks—and then announce a reality show.

The former part of the prophecy came true. Will the latter? A commenter calling himself Levinews described the rumored show as Bethenny Getting Married meets Northern Exposure meets the Republican Convention:

Within the next four to six weeks Palin's PR people will be releasing news that Bristol and Levi have signed on to "star" in a new reality show. All about young parenting. And yes, they will also work up to a wedding. This is part of the planned "story arc." Sort of a Bethenny Gets Married but with a faux conservative/young Republicans spin. Levi will be promoted as young, decent, salt of the earth guy, Bristol will be seen dealing with the "challenges" of young motherhood (with Trig and the nannies kept carefully out of sight.) Willow will be on a lot. (Since it's not like she goes to school.) They'll attempt to boost rankings in the first few episodes by having Sarah cameos, maybe some Piper thrown in there, but the rest of the time will be a "conservative young marrieds who just happen to already have a baby" theme.

It's not really Levi's fault that he got sucked back into the Palins' orbit. When you have no way to come up with $1700 a month in child support (he has to earn at least $3000 per month before taxes to pay that) and there aren't any other jobs out there, plus you can't leave the state because you're hoping to get shared custody of your child, options are limited. This way he gets a salary, the Palins get off his back about the child custody hearing and lower his support payments, and everybody can align themselves with serving the Palin/Rove/Murdoch "myth machine" that has been so painstakingly built for years around the mythical exploits of Super Sarah and her family.

The rumor was repeated in several other places, but always anonymously and most predominantly on anti-Palin blogs. This makes it suspect. However, the Johnston clan is famously cozy with liberal anti-Palin bloggers; consequently, Palin's amateur dissenters actually do get the jump on news involving Bristol and Levi, sometimes. Most notably, little sister Mercede Johnston thanks Dennis Zaki "for all of his hard work in getting this blog up and running" on MercedeJohnston.com, the blog that brother Levi ordered her to destroy when he got back together with Bristol. If Zaki's name sounds familiar, it's because he was on Palin's banned blogger list last year.

We'll believe this rumor when we see it, but it would certainly make sense for a young couple newly accustomed to the finer things in life, but whose earning potential is directly tied to their nuptial and reproductive lives, and to each other.

[Photo via Us Weekly]