Mrs. Sarah Palin, who once held a temp job as Alaska’s governor and got elected as a small town mayor so she could hire a city manager to do her job for her, has learned from all those grueling months in public life. Her recent running mate, presidential candidate Senator John McCain, rented a campaign bus to reach out to the hoi polloi, but actually travelled on a private jet owned by his wife, a millionaire beer baroness.
Mrs. Palin is campaigning to sell “her” book (ghost-written by Christian magazine editor Lynn Vincent) with a tour bus that drives to Sam’s clubs and strip malls across the USA. The bus on this “road trip” is so highly decorated that you can’t even see if Mrs. Palin is aboard. That’s handy, because she isn’t.
Mrs. Palin is actually travelling on (you guessed it) a private jet that rents for $4,000 an hour. The aircraft is reported to be a Gulfstream II with two Rolls-Royce Spey 511-8 turbofan engines, a 4,123 mile range, and a top speed of 581 mph. Technical specifications for the Palin tour bus are not available.
Mrs. Palin has experience with private jets. She campaigned for Alaska governor by vowing to sell the state jet on eBay. She kept part of that promise. The jet was listed on eBay for a year, stored, unused, in a heated facility at state expense, until it was finally sold to a political supporter through an aircraft broker, not on eBay.
Turns out that the principal use of the state jet was not taking the previous governor on pleasure jaunts but ferrying Alaska’s felons to and from contract prisons in Arizona. With the jet no longer available, state prop planes were diverted from law enforcement duties to make those trips, now two days long each way. Governor Palin’s spouse, First Thug Todd, was upset that the remaining state planes weren’t readily available for pleasure jaunts and had people fired for it.
Please let us know where those episodes appear in Mrs. Palin’s new book.
Sarah Palin is upset with the media for making an issue of her private jet use. She thinks it’s wrong. The former Temp Governor should know — she’s also a credentialed, experienced media professional.
All that and she can field-dress a moose, too. Todd is sure one lucky guy.
More details on the issue here.
Image by Mike Licht (who already knows that’s not a Gulfstream II). Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Tags: airplanes, books, bus, charter jet, corporate jet, Gulfstream Two, luxury jet, Palin, Sarah Palin
NotionsCapital 
December 4, 2009 at 2:40 pm
An enjoyable read.
My only question to the Alaskan Blogger would be whether she is ever going to read the book she didn’t write.
—
http://jasonfebery.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/going-rogue/
December 5, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I saw a moose in my yard once, and asked what he had read, and he listed just as many books and newspapers as the governor listed when asked by Katie Couric.
December 6, 2009 at 10:43 am
Dude. Nobody cares. Try again.
December 7, 2009 at 9:57 am
[…] Comments may be edited for clarity and length. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Palin: Just Plane FolksTroopergate — Plane Talk ExpressBristol Baby Daddy […]
December 7, 2009 at 10:47 am
section9 Says: Nobody cares.
Only 1,361 readers to date (not counting you).
December 9, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Now I know how she is getting from Salt Lake City to Reno to Idaho in a couple of days. Guess she got enough of driving through the snow while on temp duty in Alaska. Guess she didn’t think of using the Alaska Air National Guard to ferry her bus on one of its C-130s.
December 9, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Sarah’s a “brand,” just like Ann Coulter.
December 9, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Stan wrote: Guess she didn’t think of using the Alaska Air National Guard to ferry her bus on one of its C-130s.
Perhaps Mrs. Palin could borrow Dick Cheney’s “Spirit of Strom Thurmond,” a C-130 with a customized luxury Airstream trailer inside.
December 9, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Bootsy wrote: Sarah’s a “brand” ….
And only a brand, with no substance. All sizzle and no moose steak.
January 3, 2010 at 12:12 am
And Obama is not a brand? Oh, please, he is such a product of media sell….talk about no substance; can’t even hardly read off a teleprompter…. marketing at it’s best.
January 3, 2010 at 12:15 am
[Ed. Note: This Troll or Sock-Puppet falsely claims association with the Palin PAC]
….the woman has a bonafide education just like your president except he has all his records sealed….uh, including an original, signed, stamped and sealed birth certificate….
January 3, 2010 at 12:55 am
Desert Diva wrote: And Obama is not a brand? Oh, please, he is such a product of media sell….talk about no substance ….
President Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and was president of the Harvard Law Review. He did not need Lynn to write his best-selling book.
can’t even hardly read off a teleprompter….
Ms. Palin can certainly read off a teleprompter — she attended 5 colleges to learn how to do it. She is completely incoherent when she doesn’t have a script written by others.
January 3, 2010 at 1:22 am
“mrs. jones” wrote: ….the woman has a bonafide education just like your president ….
Mrs. Palin certainly had an education. She attended 5 of the best backwater colleges in the country, one of them twice. Oddly, although she rants about the press, her own degree is in journalism. And you are misinformed — the lady has not made her transcripts available, either.
…including an original, signed, stamped and sealed birth certificate….
Perhaps she has one; I’ve seen no evidence of this. Have you?
On the other hand, screaming loonies motivated the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health and the state’s registrar of vital statistics to confirm that Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and that official records of this fact conform to all standards and laws.