I am going to watch this again tonight on Tivo, but McCain made a statement about the tanker that made us sit bolt upright and yell WHAT!? I wonder if anyone else noticed?

He was trying to establish those maverick credentials again, 'splaining how in 25+ years in DC his life was devoted to bucking the system. In doing so he made a statement about how he stopped a tanker deal because it was corrupt or evil or something.

So...living in Seattle as I do, I am aware that he recently PUSHED to award the contract to EADS (Airbus+Northrop Grumman), when their submission didn't meet the RFP spec. It's been discussed here - Boeing filed a protest and the GSA indeed turned over the award.

McCain pushed for EADS. I don't think their response was illegal. The award got overturned by GSA, although McCain continued to support the award. So just how did he stop it? Was he saying that he pushed for the award to go to EADS because Boeing sucked the LAST time they sent out the RFP some years ago? That was then...this is now.

All I know is, Boeing workers everywhere are not gonna love him for that statement.

I think he was referring to the original deal that Boeing got, the illegal one where Darlene Dryun went to jail for. (Of course that deal was better than anything DoD will sign now, but that's beside the point)




Of course, why would fact checking ever stop you?

Wish I'd heard that one.

I did hear the one, though, where he saved the American taxpayers six billion dollars by fighting the original lease deal. I thought that was some pretty creative accounting, since the damn competition has already cost four billion, and it hasn't even been awarded yet. Yeah, great "savings", John.

Actually, the deal itself wasn't illegal. Just Dryun's idiocy.

Hence I asked the question. Duh. I wasn't living in Seattle then and was only vaguely aware of improper conduct at Boeing. That wasn't the CEO who was messin around with his assistant then, huh?

No. I think the tip of the spear was the AF official Darleen Dryun who was found guilty of inflating the contract price to favor Boeing, who she then retired from the AF to join. She did a small amount of jail time. As things unravelled (and there may have been other misconduct as well as conflict-of-interest), Boeing was fined $615 million, the CEO resigned, and the CFO did a few months of jail time.

In looking it up, I've found that yes, the CEO was asked to resign because of a relationship with a female executive, with the explanation that he could no longer effectively lead the company. My gut tells me that that was just a handy excuse to remove a leader made toxic by the procurement scandal.

You made a statement about the EADS deal disguised as a question. Had you asked a real question of what was McCain talking about you would have gotten an answer.

I don't think she inflated the price. She did, however, take money from Boeing while working at DoD - I believe they argued it was a "hiring bonus", but it was effectively a kickback.

No doubt she was a dishonest bitch. Funny thing is...despite that, the lease deal was still a good deal all around.

I'll check the tape but he used the term "recent". This other thing was quite awhile ago - I was in Dallas still. I think it was after Boeing moved its HQ to Chicago, because they were pretty gleeful down there (Boeing evaluated Dallas and decided to pass).

After I got here there was the CEO who was palsing around with the VP or whatever she was....

Now they got a strike going on, where the union's asking for an 11% raise. Good luck with THAT - those jobs are gonna go straight outta Seattle if they don't watch out. Timing is everything and no-one who's watching their savings plummet and is worried about their job has much sympathy.