Sarkozy's reward should be McCain's reward
Do you really think that Europe's EADS and its American partner Northrop Grumman would have managed to defeat the favourite Boeing in the battle to replace the US Air Force's aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers if Jacques Chirac were still in the Élysée Palace? Would the contract have gone to EADS if Ségolène Royal had defeated Nicolas Sarkozy? She would have engaged in the usual anti-American, leftist diatribes and she certainly would not have spent her summer holiday in a place called Wolfeboro.
But Sarkozy vacationed in New Hampshire and instead of bashing Bush; he visited the president's family home in Maine. The reward? An initial EADS contract for 80 aircraft worth $40 billion, and the US Air Force has plans to purchase as many as 100 more aircraft at an as yet undetermined cost.
By the way, this deal first received attention in 2001, when Senator John McCain questioned a no-bid contract that would have seen the US Air Force lease, rather than buy, 100 tankers from Boeing. Following an investigation, it became known that Boeing had offered bribes to Air Force officials in exchange for the contract. Two Boeing managers, including the firm's CFO, were jailed and Air Force Secretary James Roche resigned as a result of the scandal. Maybe the New York Times will give McCain some credit for this. Or maybe it'll depict him as the man who outsourced American jobs to Toulouse.
