By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

OK, we’ll take half.

That should be our mantra. Hell, we ought to put it on some T-shirts and bumper stickers. At least if we put it on a bumper sticker, it would give those poor schmucks driving around with “I Love My Wife” stickers on their cars a reason to peel them off. I always wonder what the hell a guy must have done wrong when I see one of those stickers. But I digress.

No, this isn’t a column about divorce, although it kind of sounds like one. I’m talking, of course, about the Air Force Tanker, um, situation. You know the one where Northrop/EADS was awarded the $40-billion contract to build the planes in Mobile only to have Boeing kick and scream about it and the Government Accountability Office publish an opinion that the Air Force screwed up the process. Now it looks like the whole thing is heading back to the drawing board.

Frankly, I always kind of thought this might happen. (God I’m super smart in hindsight!) If we all turn the Wayback machine back a few months ago, all the “experts” thought it was a slam-dunk Boeing would get the tanker contract. At best we hoped we’d get part of it. Then – KABOOM! – we get the whole thing! It’s amazing.

Of course, then the Congressional delegations from Washington state and Kansas start whining like children who didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas, Boeing protests and the wheels start coming off. Frankly, when you get as many goofy people in one room as they did when the delegations from Washington and Kansas got together to gripe about this thing, you know something bad is about to happen. Anytime Patty “Mom in Tennis Shoes” Murray and the uber whitebread Sam Brownback not only agree on something, but can both understand it, you can be pretty sure it’s poor at best.

The reason I’m not surprised this has all gone the way it has is because I spent some time working in the hallowed halls of Congress, and the one thing that’s an absolute certainty on “The Hill,” is that what’s right and good will always take a back seat to what is politically expedient.

Let’s think about this from a different angle. Consider why this massive government contract – the biggest that will come down the pike for some time – was even up for grabs in the first place. If we all think back, we can remember Boeing had the contract sewn up. They’d been awarded the tanker contract, but had put together some convoluted plan to lease them to the Air Force. Unexpectedly, someone looked into the program and it was discovered there’d been some collusive activity between a Boeing exec and an Air Force counterpart.

People went to jail and the contract was thrown back out for bid. In stepped Northrop/EADS. Although wading through the propaganda from both sides isn’t an easy proposition, it appears evident the Northrop/EADS team has at least put an excellent product out that is larger and more capable, and actually exists. That’s a bonus! Boeing has so far just submitted drawings for something they say they’ll build. And the company appears to be severely behind on every major order they’ve taken for the past several years.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Boeing should really dump the airplane building and go into public relations, because they’ve done a masterful job of turning this into an argument about buying American and fairness. They’ve somehow turned attention away from their own screw-ups, and put it on the Air Force. And when I say “somehow,” I definitely mean it’s happened by driving a dump truck full of cash up to Capitol Hill.

We all know the only thing that makes a politician’s heart beat faster than wrapping him or herself in the flag is protecting the job. In this case the Boeing contingent has much more to lose than our local guys have to gain. We weren’t supposed to win. They weren’t supposed to lose. That’s why you see the folks from Washington and Kansas thrashing around like fish in a net.

If you can actually bear the increase in blood pressure than comes with observing Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, he has the desperate look of a junkie who’s running low on smack, crack, crank or meth (maybe all of the above). He knows his ass is on the line. I bet he’s never felt so alive. Fear will do that. His constituents expect to have that damn contract and he’s going to do everything he can to make it happen, regardless as to whether it’s right for the country or our soldiers. It’s best for Todd that it’s built in his district, and he knows that in his quivering heart.

So now Todd and his buddies are actually offering legislation that would essentially make a law giving the contract to Boeing. Really. Again, let’s not forget the only reason Boeing isn’t already building this tanker is they illegally tried to screw the taxpayers. But Rep. Todd and the gang don’t give a damn about that.

I see almost no way this thing stays 100 percent with Northrop/EADS. Not because it’s not the better product, but because Congress is now fully engaged in it. That kind of money can buy a lot of votes. Eventually they’ll all look around and say, “You know, if we split it, everyone would be happy.” Sure, it’s probably not the best thing financially for the taxpayers, but neither is 99.9 percent of anything else that comes out of Washington.

Getting half would be amazing for Mobile, because the real plum here isn’t the tanker, but the commercial airliners we’ll be building in short order once the plant is here. EADS wants an American plant, and commercial jets are where they make their real money.

So my feeling is let cheeseballs like Rep. Tiahrt wave the flag and run their mouths.

Just give us half, baby.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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