Palin’s keynote address turns out to be less than completely honest. Palin did not unload the jet on ebay.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin bolstered her fiscal-conservative credentials early in her term by putting her predecessor’s state jet up for auction online.
“That luxury jet was over the top,” she told Republican National Convention delegates when she accepted the party’s vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. “I put it on eBay.”
Since Palin was chosen as Arizona Sen. John McCain’s running mate last week, the story has become a cornerstone of the Republican effort to paint Palin as a reformer who took on her own party establishment.
“How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn’t it fabulous?” McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. “You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit.”
But it turns out the twin-engine Westwind II was a tough sell on the Web — and the state eventually pulled it offline and sold it through an ordinary brick-and-mortar brokerage, for a loss, a spokeswoman said Friday.