Palin and eBay

[Photo of a Westwind II jet]

From what she said in her "acceptance" speech given the night before she was nominated, Sarah Palin, with a glint of snark in her eyes, said she turned things upside down when she reached the governor's office in Juneau, Alaska.

She got rid of the governor's chef. A major achievement to be sure, and an unhappy one, she indicated, for the governor's children. Does that mean she can't cook? Or maybe she doesn't have time to cook?

Then, she told the story about the governor's jet. High-minded and reform-minded as she was, she said, she just didn't need a jet to go jetting about the Alaskan tundra. "I came to office promising major ethics reform to end the culture of self-dealing, and today that ethics reform is the law. While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the Governor's Office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay."

Here endeth her story. [Except for the part about her being the center of an ethics investigation by the state legislature regarding the firing of a state trooper who was giving her sister a hard time in a divorce case.]

What Ms. Palin, the reformer, also failed to mention, was that the jet sat "on eBay" for many months until finally, as Booman Tribune say, it "was put into the hands of Turbo North Aviation, an Anchorage aircraft broker, which put an asking price of $2.45 million on the nearly $2.7 million jet. It quickly sold to Alaska businessman Larry Reynolds for $2.1 million ($31,000) of which went to Turbo Aviation). Today the Westwind II jet spends its days ushering wealthy hunters around Alaska and Russia."

Ms. Palin didn't bother explaining all that. She let the Convention and the world think that she was one resourceful governor, selling a plane on eBay! Not a big deal, you say, but it does reflect her casual disregard for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Not only so, but the people of Alaska took a hit of more that $600,000.