How disappointing (though, frankly, not terribly surprising) to see Merkley appealing to jingoism.

I wonder where Merkley comes up with the number 70,000, related to Oregon jobs sent overseas? Seems awfully high. I wonder what he's including, exactly, and how he defines "sent overseas"?

This is not a good issue for Merkley as the main reason why Boeing lost the contract was due to corruption and wastefulness, which aren't things you want to come out as appearing to support (even though that's not his point).

I despise McCain on most issues, but I do admire how he nailed Boeing for its wastefulness and corruption in its dealings with the government, at least this once. He's way, way too compromised with supporting pork elsewhere (Iraq, anyone?) for that to be seen as a general trait, despite the media narrative, but this is not the issue to run with as Boeing screwed themselves with their corruption and frankly did not deserve this contract.

There's plenty to attack Smith about without attacking him over this. Some facts - 1. Congress prohibits the military services from considering the effects on the domestic economy when bidding these contracts. 2. EADS has a US partner on this bid. 3. Boeing committed fraud in the initial award of the tanker lease, and people went to jail over it. 4. Boeing essentially dared the AF to award the contract to the US/European partnership by submitting a substantially inferior product. 5. There's no national security impact here - we're talking converted airliners, not advanced fighter aircraft.

The bottom line is that Boeing submitted a much inferior product and reaped the logical consequences. We should be making military contracting MORE competitive, not less. (No bid, cost plus contracts to Halliburton sound familiar?) This craven pandering doesn't have a sound basis.

Complaints against the judging rules should have been submitted earlier, by either party, if the rules truly were deemed unfair. To do so now, smacks of hypocrisy.

I have personal past knowledge of the harm that can be done to military procurement by political interference. I hope that it does not happen here.

Boeing wanted to use an older model airframe of less capacity as the basis for its proposal. Nothing wrong with that, but given the probable long production life of the chosen product, there is some merit to choosing a more modern design.

Some critiques fault the Air Force's design stipulations. Fair enough, but these should have been made early, when criteria were still being developed.

Complaints about job losses are not as relevant as the nation's interest in fielding the most mission-supportive tanker possible for a given cost. Both bidders planned to make extensive use of other-nation production.

There is a risk of unintended consequences should Congress overturn the bid award. The U.S. has a large positive trade balance in jet aircraft. We will be hard pressed to maintain that positive balance were other nations to perceive that we only practice fair aerospace trade when it is to our benefit. Expect major "pay-back" if the tanker contract award is overturned.

Well, because, frankly, that's not what Congress has said it wants. The rules say that DoD gives a briefback to the bidders regarding the reasons for the selection privately, so that the bidders can decide whether or not to protest. If Congress wants a public accounting (other than that already given), they should change the rules to make that the way it's done.

Let's not kid ourselves here, folks. The FAR and DFARs blatantly favor the contractors, because that's exactly what Congress wanted and passed laws to ensure. Contractors have money to contribute to campaigns. Attempts to reform them to make the government actually get a fair deal are routinely rebuffed by Congress for exactly the same political reasons we see in this discussion.

Kevin says, in part, "if this Airbus frame is so much better..." The airframe quality difference in favor of Northrup is marginal, though distinctly positive in my mind. Each bidder had individual points of superiority and highly informed technical and strategic judgment played a large part in the final choice. The narrowness of difference between close competitors is what gives Boeing a chance to argue for a change of decision. Absent clear and compelling evidence of Boeing superiority summed across the full spectrum of judging criteria, the bid winner should remain as decided. The procurement process offers an orderly way to decide bids and is likely to be as objective, or more so, than the political judgments now being hastily marshaled.

I am really suspicious of a bunch of the posts on here. If you lack the ability to think, I can see why don't think there is a problem and Merkely was just up to ... what did you call it? Jingoism?

It is appalling to use billions of our tax money to buy military stuff from overseas when we have unemployed people all over the place and a national economy tanking.

I am sure you are happily employed or rich. Some of the rest of us just might be desperate for any job. At least we know you are in favor of outsourcing American jobs.

By the way, I don't like military spending to begin with, but if it going to be spent...spend it here.

I hope Novick was happy with your post... or maybe it was Novick himself. I am happy somebody is at the very least concerned about this.