GAO tells us what we already know

Breaking news out of the Government Accountability Office -- the decision to grant a contract to the French company AirBus was a bad one.

Thanks captain obvious.

Turns out the Air Force just made a bunch of crap up about how much it was going to cost Boeing to build the thing.

Our friends at StayRed are prepared to knight Sen. Pat Roberts and Rep. Todd Tiahrt for their tireless work in getting GAO to tell us what we already knew.

Of course, if Sen. Roberts would've told John McCain and George Bush where to stick it and opposed stripping the Buy American provision from the 2006 Defense Authorization Bill, Boeing would already be building the damn plane, but we digress.

Wethinks there is something fishy going on, though, now that it appears the bid process was unduly influenced by invisible hands to favor Airbus. Both Sens. John McCain and Pat Roberts have extensive lobbying ties to Northrop Grumman, AirBus' American partner, and AirBus itself.

According to a press release from the Jim Slattery campaign, Pat Roberts' son David lobbied the Senate for AirBus on issues related to the very Defense Authorization bill that would pave the way for this decision.

And we already know about McCain's ties to AirBus lobbyists.

If Sen. Roberts and Rep. Tiahrt had anything to do with this, which is debatable since the decision seemed to be pretty obvious, well, it's about damn time. Next time, how about you fight for Kansas jobs BEFORE they get outsourced to France. Then we won't have to worry about all this mess.

You gotta watch this from beginning to end...

If it looks like a Bush and quacks like a Bush....

It's starting to look like the "Straight-Talk Express" has a couple of flat tires.

We already knew most of McCain's campaign staff were lobbyists, but the Associated Press is reporting that two staff members and a volunteer on his campaign have worked or currently work as lobbyists for European Aeronautic Defense & Space, who's French subsidiary AirBus won a $35 Billion (with a B) contract to build airplanes for the United States Air Force.

Yes, the very same decision that will in all likelihood deal a crippling blow to the local economy in Wichita .

The AP story reports that:

Top current advisers to Senator John McCain's presidential campaign last
year lobbied for European Aeronautic Defense & Space bid that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's
campaign. A third, the former Texas Representative Tom Loeffler, lobbied for
EADS while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.

This should come as no surprise coming from the guy who was endorsed by George W. Bush, who has proven time and time again that making his friends rich is more important than the welfare of the country.

Now, McCain's team is claiming that the lobby work these individuals did for the company is not related to the tanker deal.

Do they truely want us to believe that it is purely a coincidence that two people in high-ranking positions on his campaign team and one volunteer have significant financial ties to a company that just received a $35 billion deal made possible by an amendment he wrote in 2003?

I mean honestly, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a former EADS lobbyist. I actually have EADS lobbyists doing yardwork at my house as we speak. Who ISN'T a former EADS lobbyist?

Probably not anyone on Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama's staff.