4134884314_6eee38ea8b Sarah Palin's Gas-Guzzling Marketing Machine

All book tours are inherently bad for the environment, but Sarah Palin’s may be the worst.

Sarah Palin’s tour bus, which covered more than 3,000 road miles during the book tour’s first week alone, has been missing one essential thing: Sarah Palin. Some good old-fashioned muckraking by Joe McGinness at the Daily Beast has revealed that instead of riding in her own tour bus, the former candidate for Vice President has been utilizing a rented Gulfstream II 12-passenger jet (which costs more than $4,000 per hour) to fly to many of the cities on her book tour while her tour bus cruises between airports across the country, waiting to pick her up and shuttle her to local events.

More than two weeks ago, quoting Andreadis, USA Today reported that Palin would be “making two and sometimes three stops a day, traveling in a bus painted with the cover of her book.” And just before the tour started, Palin herself said on her Facebook page: “I’ll post our progress from the road.” To further the illusion, the populist heroine gave televised interviews from the bus, including one to Greta Van Susteren en route to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

But according to McGinness, Palin seems to spend only superficial time on the bus after she’s landed. “The plane’s goings and comings track Palin’s tour perfectly: from Grand Rapids to Washington, Pa. and then to Rochester, N.Y., Roanoke, Va., Fayetteville, N.C., Birmingham, Ala., and Jacksonville and Orlando.”

However much environmental waste has been generated by Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ tour so far is difficult to calculate. But if Sarah Palin is out to destroy the world, as many like to believe, her book tour is a great start.

The full activity log for the jet Palin has been using can be found here.

Update from Gawker: Harper Collins is taking the fall! And also denying that the whole bus thing is a fraud! They confirmed that Sarah Palin has taken a plane, but her publisher booked and paid for the flights. Also they say she only took the plane three times, even though the plane has been following their itinerary this whole time. (Palingates finds this hard to believe!)