Also see:
AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications •
Go to Original
Angry Boeing Supporters Target McCain
By Matthew Daly
The Associated Press
Saturday 08 March 2008
Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential
candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing's loss of a $35 billion Air
Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus.
There are other targets for their ire - the Air Force, the defense secretary
and even the entire Bush administration.
But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the
Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would
have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing
now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and
existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.
"I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to
them and their jobs," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose state would
have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.
"Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams
that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that
Americans used to have," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. "We are sending
the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it."
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Los Angeles-based
Northrop Grumman, won a competition with Boeing Feb. 29 to build the refueling
planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades. The unexpected decision
has sparked outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact
on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security. EADS and Northrop say about 60
percent of their tanker will be built in the U.S.
McCain said he is keeping an open mind on the contract, but in the past he
has boasted about his role in blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal
that gave the contract to Boeing. The deal was killed in 2004 after a former
Boeing executive improperly recruited an Air Force official while she was still
overseeing contracts involving prospective Boeing deals. The former Air Force
official, Darleen Druyun, and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison,
and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several
top Air Force officials.
McCain has run ads touting his role in fighting "pork" such as the
tanker project and cited the deal in a recent GOP debate.
"I saved the taxpayers $6 billion in a bogus tanker deal," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoing the thoughts of many congressional
Democrats, sees McCain's role in a less positive light. She said the earlier
tanker deal was "on course for Boeing" before McCain started railing
against it.
"I mean, the thought was that it would be a domestic supplier for it,"
Pelosi told reporters. "Senator McCain intervened, and now we have a situation
where the contract may be - this work may be outsourced."
Even Boeing's Republican supporters are critical of McCain.
"John McCain will be the nominee and I will support him, but if John McCain
believes that Airbus or EADS is the company for our Air Force tanker program
he's flat-out wrong - and I'll tell him that to his face," said Rep.
Dave Reichert, R-Wash.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican whose district includes a Boeing plant
that could have gained hundreds of new jobs from the tanker program, said McCain's
role in killing the earlier deal is likely to become an election issue. Both
of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton, have criticized the Air Force decision.
"I think we absolutely will hear more about it," Tiahrt said. "We'll
hear it mostly from the Democrats and they have every right to be concerned."
McCain called such criticism off base.
"In all due respect to the Washington delegation, they vigorously defended
the process before - which turned out to be corrupt - which would
have cost the taxpayers more than $6 billion and ended up with people in federal
prison," he said. "I'm the one that fought against that ... for years
and brought down a corrupt contract."
Keith Ashdown, with the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Boeing
executives who broke the law were to blame for the demise of the tanker contract
- not McCain.
"This was theirs from day one," he said. "This idea that any
lawmaker is to blame is a joke."
Still, Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University,
said McCain's opposition to Boeing could hurt him with voters in Washington
and other states affected by the tanker program. Boeing would have performed
much of the work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt &
Whitney engines built in Connecticut. Significant work also was slated for Texas.
"If he can be painted as somehow being associated with job losses ...
it could hurt him on the margins," Donovan said.
McCain's role in the tanker deal did not bother Alabama politicians, including
Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who endorsed McCain three days after the Air Force
contract was announced. The EADS-Northrop tanker, based on the Airbus A330,
will be built in Mobile, Ala., where it will produce 2,000 new jobs, and support
25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.
--------
Associated Press writers Libby Quaid and Sam Hananel contributed to
this story.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Print This Story
E-mail This Story