and cost Americans on upwards of 40,000 jobs as the contract went to Northrop/Airbus this month. The Northrop/Airbus consortium generates only 60% of the Air Force tanker being made in the USA. Here is an article that highlights his role back in 2004 when he "scuttled" the Boeing tanker contract as a chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee - - - costing tens of thousands of American jobs! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002130791_mccain26m.html
"the Boeing mess has become a poster child for everything that's wrong with the way government does business with defense contractors." .................OR............................ "costing tens of thousands of American jobs!" What do you want?
The deal was scuttled because Boeing got caught up in a scandal with a Pentagon procurement official. The CEO of Boeing was canned and the official went to jail. I applaud McCain for not looking the other way. The deal was a huge ripoff and everyone involved knew it. Boeing's head lobbyist was Senator Tom Daschle's wife. It is troubling that EADS is heavily subsidized by european governments. Maybe we should look at that as their way of sharing our defense burden.