Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign have been getting some attention of late (though not nearly enough) for their propensity for lying about things. Its quite a talent they have. Most of the coverage has focused on Palin’s lie about “stopping” the “Bridge to Nowhere”. This is almost worth another post so maybe I’ll whip one up in a bit but needless to say Palin was for the bridge until Congress stopped the earmark and then as Governor, Palin kept the money and spent it on other things. Palin’s repeated this lie 27 times now (and counting). But the Bridge to Nowhere lie isn’t my favorite Palin lie, the eBay one is.
During her convention speech, and pretty much every time she’s opened her mouth since, Palin bragged about putting the Alaska state plane on eBay. This is supposed to prove that she’s sooooo anti-government spending, etc.. Palin is always (sometimes) careful to say she “put it on eBay” rather then “sold it on eBay” and why is that? You probably guessed the answer already: because the plane didn’t get sold on eBay. Here’s the Washington Post:
In fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the plane — shy of the $2.7 million purchase price — according to news reports at the time. Reynolds contributed to Palin’s campaign in 2006.
So the jet didn’t sell on eBay and the state lost $600,000 on the sale to a Palin contributor. Good to know. I wonder what Senator McCain, Mr. Straight Talk Express himself, has to say about the plane on eBay story:
“You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor, and sold it on eBay — and made a profit!”
I bet he did enjoy that! Too bad, as illustrated above, he’s completely wrong on pretty much all counts.