McCain Didn’t Go in the Tanker

I generally simmer with a level of outrage about Washington goings-on, but the last 48 hours have caused me to boil over. Partisan attacks on Senator John McCain for his yeoman work investigating the Boeing tanker lease are intellectually dishonest. Yes, McCain is running for President, but the partisan attacks shouldn’t be pro-corruption. Let’s make no mistake about how underhanded the Boeing Tanker Lease deal was. When POGO did its 2002 investigation, Fill ‘Er Up: Back-Door Deal for Boeing Will Leave the Taxpayer on Empty, we had no idea of the outright criminal behavior behind it. We just knew the taxpayers were getting screwed. It was Senator McCain’s investigation that uncovered the secret deal: a Pentagon official was negotiating jobs for herself and her family with a Boeing executive in exchange for the multi-billion dollar Air Force contract. They both went to jail for it (see here and here).

What are the people who are attacking Senator McCain for his investigation thinking? That it would have been better if he had taken the easy road, held his nose, and looked the other way, as the rest of Congress did–even though the taxpayers would have been the losers? It is a shame that, after the Air Force competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman/Airbus, a lot of American jobs may be lost, but the alternative is infinitely worse–accepting corruption as a part of doing business.

As Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post wrote,”the message it would send to every contracting officer in every government agency is that if they know what is good for their careers, they will put political consideration ahead of getting the best value for the American taxpayer.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.