New Lefty Outrage: Gasp, Sarah Palin Flies in Planes!

-By Warner Todd Huston

**Update** Palin Responds About Travel Below

Al Gore flies all across the world destroying the environment with his travels so that he can sell the fantasy of globaloney. Hundreds of government officials will be crisscrossing the globe flying to Copenhagen to “save the planet” at the upcoming Climate Conference this December. All are adding to what leftists call global warming and they are adding more in just the month of December alone with their efforts than any common citizen would in their entire lifetime.

So, what is the lefty outrage du jour? Is it that these so-called environmentalists are hypocrites? Nope. The newest outrage from the left is that Sarah Palin dares to fly from city to city during her whirlwind book tour.

I know. The nerve of her, eh?

At issue with Joey McGinniss’ “shocking” expose is the bus that Palin has been using to get from one location to the next in the local areas during her book tour, but has flown the longer distances. Why is this such an outrage? Because Palin said this about her book tour when it began:

“I’ll post our progress from the road.”

According to McGinniss this proves that Palin is a liar about using the buss to cross the country on her book tour. Since she has at times been flying, apparently, McGinniss thinks that the “from the road” part of her post makes her a liar despite that it is quite common vernacular to use that phrase when discussing travel. Who says “from the air” when they are talking about traveling?

McGinniss then goes on to ask all sorts of “probing” questions about the flights. He wants to know who is paying for the flights, if she has anyone else on these planes with her, if she’ll continue to fly, if she… well, let’s just say he has a lot of questions.

And let’s remind this left-wing hack that none of the answers to these questions are any of his business! Sarah Palin is a private individual dealing with a private business. She is not working for the taxpayers and her bills are paid for out of the profits of her book sales and/or the company that is publishing the work. Sarah Palin has absolutely no responsibility to answer to some twit in the press about her expenses.

If she wants to fly 20 different private jets to fly to 20 different cities, it is none of Joey McGinniss’ business.

If Sarah Palin wants to drive 20 busses where ever she wants to ride them it is none of Joey McGinniss’ business.

If Sarah Palin wants to ride a horse and buggy to every book stop it is none of Joey McGinniss’ business.

Joey McGinniss has a tempest in a teapot all revved up and ready to outrage his extremist, left-wing buddies, to be sure, but he definitely has nothing of any note to write about. Must be a slow news day to be pushing this falderal.

But I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. Joey McGinniss has been trying to get at Sarah since she debuted on the national scene. So, one wonders, how many books has Joey McGinniss’ name sold?

Of course, even were we to take McGinniss’ point seriously, just a little research into the Governor’s actual itinerary on this book tour undermines his ridiculous claims. Also, Harper Collins spokesperson Tina Andreadis informed Greg Sargent that Palin had taken only three plane trips, that her plane travel was been minimal and only for logistical reasons. The publisher, not Palin, scheduled the plane trips and also paid for them. Other than the three flights, Sarah Palin’s book signing travel was indeed done on the tour bus.

It’s more proof of the failure to even check a few facts where Palin is concerned with the Old Media haters. They set up their anti-Palin supposition and then craft the “facts” around their plot line. Let’s not have truth getting in the way of a good anti-Palin story, shall we?

**Update** Palin Responds About Travel

It’s really comical at this point! Despite all of the important events happening in the world today – the president’s speech tonight on the strategy in Afghanistan, the Senate debate over health care reform, the disturbing details of the “Climategate” scandal, the continuing challenges facing the world economy – the media is concerned about my travel and lodging arrangements on my book tour?! Does this sound familiar? It should. The media showed the same out-of-proportion obsession with my personal arrangements, clothes, and hairstyles last year instead of focusing on the crucial issues involving the election.

So what is this news “story”? That I fly on an airplane to complete some of the stops on my book tour when it’s impractical or physically impossible to reach the next event on time by bus. Some news outlets are behaving as if my travel was a secret that they didn’t know about – despite the fact that I’ve tweeted about my flights and at least one local newspaper reported on the arrival of my flight into Rochester, NY. What’s even funnier is that these same media outlets think it’s shocking that we stay in hotels. I guess they expected us to pitch a tent alongside the road. We love the great outdoors, but such an arrangement is hardly practical for a book tour. Using common sense, it was determined that traveling by plane between some stops would save time and energy and allow me to go to more events. Economically speaking for HarperCollins, it’s more efficient to travel by charter, and I am very grateful to the publisher for providing my family and me with this incredible opportunity to shake hands with as many Americans as possible on this book tour.

If you’re scratching your head wondering why my flight and hotel logistics warrant news coverage, join the club. They can, of course, report on whatever they like, but in my opinion CBS loses whatever professional integrity it still has when it links in its report to a website devoted to the bizarre conspiracy theory that I’m not the real mother of my son Trig.

I’m truly humbled by the response to my book tour by everyday Americans, and if traveling by plane means that I can meet more of these wonderful people, I’ll travel by plane (or bus or train or canoe or dog sled or whatever it takes).

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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.

He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

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