Levi Johnston: Does he have the answers Sarah Palin didn't?

Johnson, a rumored candidate for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, admits he&#039;s no news addict.

(Image credit: Getty)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: When Levi Johnston appeared on MSNBC's 'Last Word' Tuesday night, the man who's supposedly making a 2011 bid to be mayor of Wasilla (as part of a reality show), got an unexpected opportunity to shine. (See video below.) Host Lawrence O'Donnell, eager to establish the rumored candidate's "world view," asked Johnston the same questions with which Katie Couric famously stumped Sarah Palin during her 2008 vice presidential campaign — grilling the former hockey player on his favorite publications and views on topics ranging from global warming to evolution to Pakistan. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you I read a lot of newspapers," Johnston admitted. "I don't watch a whole lot of news."

The reaction: "The point of the exercise... was unclear," says Dan Amira in New York. Sure, Johnston is "supposedly" running for Wasilla mayor, but "as far as we know, the mayor of Wasilla doesn't need to have an opinion about troop levels in Afghanistan or Pakistan's relationship with Al Qaeda." Not only that, it was also a snooze, says Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post. "For years, I wondered what the opposite of riveting was. It turns out that it's 'an interview with Levi Johnston.'" Au contraire, it was "amusing TV" says Benjamin Svetkey at Entertainment Weekly. "It sure beat sitting through yet another cycle of ideological banter with the usual MSNBC talking heads." Watch the clip: