Daily Truthiness: Palin Yarn Unraveled

John McCain and Sarah Palin may need to come up with a new campaign slogan.

McCain/Palin; a million little pieces.

During her Veep acceptance speech Wednesday night in St. Paul, Palin bandied rhetoric about her pragmatic approach to tackling government waste.

Now we're left to discern between the simple truth and her dramatic fabrications.

Palin received more than a few yah-you-betchas and copious applause when she told the story of selling a private jet on ebay that her predecessor had purchased with state funds.

Truthiness.

"That luxury jet was over the top," she told the RNC faithful when she accepted the party's vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. "I put it on eBay."

As it turns out, this little Palin yarn was the highlight of John McCain's evening.

"How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn't it fabulous?" McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in 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."

Complete and utter rubbish.

As fact would have it, Palin did have the jet listed for auction sale on ebay. There was little interest for a 2-million-dollar jet in the online garage sale community, however, so the plane was sold by an aviation sale broker at a significant financial loss to Alaska.

Palin's predecessor, Frank Murkowski, bought the jet for $2.7 million in 2005. The plane was sold by Palin for $2.1 million after she took office.

That's a net loss of 23%, not including the jets operating costs the state incurred while owning it.

This appears to be another indication that John McCain's grasp - or lack thereof - on simple economics is troubling. The McCain sound economy of great progress and significant strides, of course.