Variously, discussing the recent news concerning Bristol Palin has been described as cynical, an invasion of privacy, or otherwise something that should be avoided. While there are definitely snarky, cynical posts out there, I feel that it’s a legitimate conversation–and yes, even the snarkiness of Gawker is not going to kill anyone.

Sure, Bristol didn’t enter the limelight willingly–it was her mother that made her do it. But isn’t that part of the appeal? What does a seventeen year old girl do when suddenly she finds herself the subject of media attention? When suddenly she becomes a pro-life poster child, or an example of the failures of abstinence-only sex education? Americans are interested in famous people, and, increasingly, politicians are famous people. Sarah Palin will surely make a run for national office in four years–and she’s not just a boring politician. She’s got an interesting narrative, and part of that narrative is media reaction.

Bristol herself is irrelevant to this, however. Really it’s about Sarah Palin. We want to know if Sarah Palin pushed the engagement for her own credibility. We want to know if she’ll come out of this smelling of roses, or if she’ll come out of this looking like a manipulative monster, or if she’ll come out of this beaten and bedraggled by the media.

And I’ve got a lot of respect for Bristol, who managed, in her interview with Fox News, to look like a normal girl who made a few bad choices and hopes that other girls will learn something from her situation. I wish her well. I also don’t think that anything can or should be done to stem the imminent media feeding frenzy. She has certainly endured worse. Idle speculation on whether her engagement was politically motivated is not going to drive her over the edge.

But here’s the thing: this is interesting on multiple levels. I find Sarah Palin interesting because I have never encountered a politician I have found so utterly distasteful before, and I am interested in watching her future career; I find Bristol Palin interesting because there is something inherently appealing about seeing the lives of someone who is directly related to someone who was in the national limelight for a while; I find the media’s reaction to Sarah Palin and her meteoric rise and fall fascinating.

This is not just idle gossip. Politicians are the new celebrities because they have relevance. They are part of the absurd political process. The media, their reaction to politicians, their reaction to politicians’ families and staffers and other not-quite-public figures, all of these are interesting. It’s a bizarre circus of absurdity, but it’s there, and until it goes away, talking about it should not be made out to be a crime. It’s not cynical, it’s not mean-spirited–it’s part of the process.

It’s a far sight better from talking about people who are completely irrelevant.