When I was nearing the end of this blog post, CNN reported that in contrast to the original statement by Harper Collins, Jason Rechter, an aide to Sarah Palin, had now admitted that Sarah Palin actually was present on five flights with the hired Gulfstream plane during the book tour (not counting the flight back to Tri-Cities for Thanksgiving, which would have been the sixth flight!).
during the book tour, which was a factually wrong statement.
Therefore, the post has now been overtaken by the events, but I will still publish it in order to show the exact extent of the travel. Furthermore, I still cannot understand why Harper Collins decided yesterday to release a false statement (after they first announced that
).
However, in seven days, according to CNN, she only spent 24 hours in the bus! The rest of the transport was done by private plane. That qualifies as a "road trip"?
Here is my post about the facts of the book tour:
The complete flight log of the plane (click to enlarge):
FIRST FLIGHT:November 18: Teterboro – Westchester County
Departure 8:32 AM EST
Arrival 8:45 AM EST
THE FACTS:
Sarah did an interview with Barbara Walters on November 17, 2009 in New York.
I don’t think that Sarah was on the plane when it flew from Teterboro to Westchester County on the morning of November 18. I have spoken to somebody who knows both airports and I am convinced that she boarded the plane at Westchester County airport, which is an airport which allows much greater privacy.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was not on this flight.
+++
SECOND FLIGHT:November 18: Westchester County – Gerald Ford International, Grand Rapids, MI.
Departure 12:06 PM EST
Arrival 01:22 PM EST
THE FACTS:
Sarah Palin had a book signing in the evening of November 18 at Barnes & Nobles in Grand Rapids, MI. It is undisputed that she took her private plane to Grand Rapids.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was definitely on this flight
(COUNT: SARAH FLIGHT NO 1)+++
THIRD FLIGHT:November 18: Gerald R. Ford International, MI – Washington County Airport PA
Departure: 3:11 PM EST
Arrival: 4:00 PM EST
THE FACTS:
Sarah Palin had no more book signings on November 18, after the one in Grand Rapids, MI. She had two books signings in Indiana on November 19. Therefore the plane just flew to Washington County airport without her in order to pick her up again on November 21.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was not on this flight.
+++
FOURTH FLIGHT:November 21: Washington County WA – Greater Rochester International NY
Departure: 3:24 PM EST
Arrival: 3:56 PM EST
THE FACTS:
Sarah Palin had her first book signing on November 21 at 11:00 AM at the Sam's Club in Washington, PA. She then took the plane to Rochester NY, where she had another book signing at 6:00 PM. This flight is undisputed.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was definitely on this flight
(COUNT: SARAH FLIGHT NO 2)+++
FIFTH FLIGHT:November 21: Greater Rochester International NY – Roanoke Regional VA
Departure: 9:43 PM EST
Arrival: 10:38 PM EST
THE FACTS:
On November 22, Governor Palin had an 11:00 AM book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Roanoke, VA followed by dinner with the Rev. Billy Graham later that day at his home in Montreat, NC (to which she used a plane provided by “Samaritan Purse”).
This flight was not mentioned in the “three stops” that Harper Collins had admitted. This is inexplicable. Sarah Palin herself
twittered on the morning of November 21:"Landed in VA/swung by overnight campers to say "thx & we'll see u again tmorrw!" Reminiscent of Alaskan camping trips-slash-tailgate parties"Therefore Sarah Palin admitted herself that she was on this flight, which is entirely consistent with the flight log. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the statement by Harper Collins
as reported by Greg Sargent at theplumline.com is FALSE, because the flight to VA is omitted in the statement.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was definitely on this flight
(COUNT: SARAH FLIGHT NO 3) -
NOW FINALLY CONFIRMED BY CNN!+++
SIXTH FLIGHT:November 21: Roanoke Regional VA – Fayetteville Regional NC
Departure: 11:43 PM EST
Arrival: 12:00 PM EST
THE FACTS:
The plane flew without Sarah Palin, who had her book signing at Fort Bragg, NC, which is just next to Fayetteville Regional, NC, only on November 23 at 11:00 AM. The plane waited for Sarah at Fayetteville Regional from November 21 – November 23.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was not on this flight.
+++
SEVENTH FLIGHT:November 23: Fayetteville Regional NC – Birmingham Shuttlesworth AL
Departure: 3:40 PM EST
Arrival: 3:47 PM CST
THE FACTS:
This trip is undisputed. Harper Collins acknowledges that she was on the plane.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was definitely on this flight
(COUNT: SARAH FLIGHT NO 4)+++
EIGHTH FLIGHT:November 23: Birmingham Shuttlesworth AL – Jacksonville International FL
Departure: 8:12 PM CST
Arrival: 10:09 PM EST
THE FACTS:
On the day before, on November 23, she started her last book signing at the Books-A-Million store in Birmingham at 4:30 PM.
On November 24, Sarah Palin had a busy day in Florida. She had three book signings. Her first book signing was at the Books-A-Million in Jacksonville at 9:00 AM.
Again, it is inexplicable that Harper Collins has omitted this flight in their statement.
In theory it’s possible that Sarah Palin could have taken the bus from Birmingam AL to Jacksonville FL. The map shows that the journey would have taken at least 7 ½ hours, therefore it would be “do-able” over night.
However, it seems extremely unlikely that this was the case. Sarah’s plane took off about one hour after her last book-signing in Birmingham had finished – should we really believe that it went without her and that Sarah instead preferred a long bus tour overnight, which she knew would be followed the next day by a gruelling bus tour through Florida with three stops on November 24 (Jacksonville, The Villages, Orlando). I don’t think so!
As I had noted in a previous post, even C4P believed that she took the plane to Jacksonville,
in their article in which they showed their outrage about this “faux scandal”.It defies all rules of logic to believe that Sarah was not on this plane, and it’s also not consistent with the overall pattern of the flights during this book tour. The only “empty” flights up to this point were those ones where she didn’t need to be on the plane. Here, the plane took off about an hour after the book signing was finished and she needed to be in Jacksonville early the next morning. It can safely be concluded that Sarah flew to Jacksonville and spent the night from November 23 to November 24 in a hotel.
There is one extremely interesting point about this trip to Jacksonville:On the morning of November 24,
Sarah Palin had twittered that she was “on bus to Jacksonville”, therefore deliberately setting an impression that she actually travelled to Jacksonville by bus:
The fact that Harper Collins and Sarah Palin were deliberately giving a false impression about the tour, saying right from the start that it would mainly be a bus tour, when in fact it was mainly a plane tour with overnight-stays in hotels, is the reason why we felt it was necessary to expose this behaviour, which was classic Palin style – “Bible Spice” in action.
CONCLUSION:
There can be no reasonable doubt that Sarah was on the flight
(COUNT: SARAH FLIGHT NO 5) –
NOW FINALLY CONFIRMED BY CNN!
+++
NINTH FLIGHT:November 23: Jacksonville FL – Orlando FL
Departure: 11:01 PM EST
Arrival: 11:25 PM EST
THE FACTS:
It’s clear that this was an empty flight, and that the plane was flying to Orlando in order to pick her up on November 25.
CONCLUSION:
Sarah was not on this flight.
+++
TENTH FLIGHT:November 25: Orlando FL – Tri-Cities WA
Departure: 2:40 PM EST
Arrival: 4:47 PM PST
THE FACTS:
This flight is undisputed, as the media reported her arrival at the airport in Tri-Cities. This event started the whole “planegate” saga, as our reader “snowbilly” found the registration number of the Gulfstream plane in the flight list, and
palingates afterwards discovered the complete flight-logs and broke the story, which then
went viral, nationally and internationally.CONCLUSION:
Sarah was on the flight, but this flight arguably was not directly related to the book-tour, because she flew to a private gathering for Thanksgiving in Tri-Cities (where Todd was conspicuously absent, because
he apparently had to “fix the roof” in icy-cold weather in Wasilla…).+++
Word of advice to Harper Collins:Don't throw yourself under the bus for the Quitter Queen! As others have found out before you: Sarah Palin is just about one thing, and that is: Sarah Palin.Please click on the title of the blog post or CLICK HERE before using the toolbar below for sharing.
