I don't know who Bristol Palin is as a person. At her age, I'm not sure that she knows herself. I just don't much care for the way some people are trashing her because of who her mother is.

Personally, I find her abstinence shtick beyond silly, and I'm amazed that the cognitive dissonance isn't overwhelming to anyone who hears it. ("Here's a lovely unwed teen mother to talk to you about how abstinence works.") And as I said, she isn't much of a dancer. In fact, she isn't really a star which makes me wonder why the show asked her on in the first place. And that brings up my last points...

She may not have the most friendly personality, but it's a dancing contest.

It's more than a dancing contest, though at the end, the better dancers do tend to prevail. But, her personality did pretty much suck, so she may have not have had a dedicated base. Wasn't she in the bottom before?

I think Bristol may have also done better vote wise because she was a heck of a lot better than Kate+8 as a non-dancer. And yes, the TP crew was  voting for her . . . .

I say that as someone who watches the Top Chef shows, somehow managing to get hooked on the Just Desserts variation that really isn't all that good, and The Next Iron Chef, and those are shows that are clearly edited and packaged to manipulate the viewer and extract as much drama as possible to drive ratings - but I still can't help rooting for my favorites and being annoyed when the divas and drama queens prevail.

So, I get it.  I do.

But, here's the thing: Bristol Palin wouldn't be on DWTS were it not for her mother's celebrity status; they went to her, and she, with a child to raise and wanting to have some independence, saw an opportunity for financial reward, and probably really didn't care if she lasted one week or made it all the way through.  It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for the show/network and Bristol - and whatever drama has flowed from all of this, I'm guessing that for all the "we're so shocked" talk, the show's producers and the network are probably doing the Happy Dance over it because more people are watching.

Yes, Bristol is certainly responsible for what she says, but as has been pointed out, we don't know her, we only know what we see, and that's not really the totality of her life or who she is.  So, if she says she's not really Hollywood, who are we to say she is?  Because of the sensational aspects of her life?  Were it not for who her mother is, we wouldn't know her name - she would have been one more faceless, nameless statistic: a teenager who had a kid, and was faced with figuring out how to make that life work.  

As it is, she's still a statistic, and she's still got to figure out how to make her life work, and how to provide for her child; she's chosen to stay in this spotlight as a trade-off for some financial security.  Are we really going to blame her for that, and is it really her fault that DWTS is a viewer-driven competition?

Here's a hint: They don't have to be VALID email addresses to register them with ABC.com, there is apparently no validation process. The just have to be formatted like a valid email address, and you must use a valid zip code and a birthdate that makes you old enough to vote. I'm voting like a democrat, all night long...

Anyway, DWTS should exclude political figures, esp. relevant ones, from the show.  I would even go back in time and remove Tom DeLay.

Yes, Bristol was a popularity ringer, but Jennifer Gray was the DANCING ringer.  Most seasons, you could argue, well is skating close enough close to dancing that we can consider Yamaguchi a ringer?  etc. But this year, we have a completely inarguable trained ballroom DANCING ringer.

So which is worse, rigging the popularity contest with the right contestant or rigging the dancing contest for a clear end?  It will be interesting to see if the dancer beats the popular.

And BTW, both Jennifer Gray and Bristol Palin are beneficiaries of nepotism.  Had Jennifer Gray not been Joel Gray's daughter, we may have had a different "Baby". And she may have been too has-been even now to be on this show.

Tom Bergeron replied:

Here's the thing. Let's address the Bristol thing. That's the thing I get the biggest kick out of on the show. I'm going to put on my political hat. I'm a liberal Democrat, and I state that proudly. But I have no patience with my friends who believe there is a conspiracy keeping Bristol on the show. They'll say, and they're friends of a similar political persuasion though I have friends across the spectrum, "Oh, well! She's still on the show! She's obviously not the best dancer! She gets the lowest scores!" My response to that is similar to my response to the midterm elections. I'll say, "OK, right. So who did you vote for instead of Bristol?" "Uh, well, I don't vote!" "Well, then, f*ck you." I mean, basically! You can clean that up. I have no patience for that! If you don't participate to create a different outcome -- and this can be true in national politics or a TV reality show -- then don't piss and moan if you don't like the way it's playing out. You know, I'm sorry! I think Bristol is clearly not the best dancer here, but she's a charming young woman who's shown an incredible growth from week one to this week. If she happens to get more votes for whatever reason, more power to her. If you don't like it, vote for someone else. But that's been the part of the show that's amused me, how quickly people are to seize on conspiracy theories when people aren't involved in the process.

Finally arrested by a SWAT team.

He could use a good legal defender.

I don't watch much DWTS or any of the romance matching or survivor shows.  I have watched "So you think you can dance" on occasion because I love to see the best do their thing and the guy that heads the judges, Nigel Lythgoe, who was a great dancer always says that what is more important than raw technique is is how you connect with the audience.  

And this is the same Left that is always shoving their politics into venues where it doesn't belong.

Mando was clearly the winner of project runway but for whatever reason the judges (other then Heidi) took offense that he did not take their runway show advice to heart and instead put his vision out there (which was clearly better then the bland alternative) and awareded the show to what's her name.

That was ridiculous.  Even Jessica Simpson was taken aback.

If we're going to point out reality show injustices lets start at the top.

DWTS is a popularity contest.  If we want to complain how about the fact that someone like Bristol is competing against professional singers and dancers on a dancing show.   One could argue that she has shown the most improvement so she deserves to win.   Jennifer Grey was in a Dancing movie and is professionally trained.   This is as silly as the figure skater who was on the show.