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Politicians lie. They all do. The ones we have running all will lie, and if you're not choked with pure idealism you'll admit it. In fact, if you're jaded enough, you might even come to accept it, even respect it when it's done well. The concept isn't perplexing, especially when a deftly placed, glibly drawn half-truth can get yourself out of a dead-end argument.
What is perplexing, however, are unnecessary lies. Silly falsehoods, said for no apparent reason, on topics that the world would have totally avoided had you not lied about it in the first place. One strange Sarah Palin falsehood, which she acclaimed as truth yesterday and the campaign reaffirmed tonight in video was that she successfully auctioned a private jet she deemed unnecessary for the State of Alaska to maintain on eBay. It's a strange falsehood because, in the first place, really, who cares? Moreover, it's bizarre because eBay founder Meg Whitman works for the McCain campaign! She's right there! In the building! And surely she can explain to Palin that she is getting that weird bit of biography wrong.
Via Radar, the facts are these:
After going unsold for months, the jet 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.
So why on earth would Palin lie about this, knowing that it would bring scrutiny to this story, and knowing that the scrutiny would reveal that a) the auction wasn't successful, b) she lost the State of Alaska's money on the deal, and c) the state's valuable resource had basically become a luxury for wealthy elites? I have no idea! But whatever! It's definitely not the worst lie she's ever told.
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