One Can Imagine, If One Were a Skeptical Kind of Person, That One Might Immediately Think
…upon hearing this earlier lament and knowing Boeing’s previous, well-varnished history…
…Last summer, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney expressed concern in a meeting with securities analysts that his company might be underbid by its European competitor.
…that this past Friday’s Air Force “late afternoon bad news dump” was just a tad bit more than your usual, fat-fingered, clerical ‘OOPSIE’.
The Air Force mistakenly gave rival companies sensitive information that contained each other’s confidential bids in a long-standing, multibillion dollar competition to build a new refueling tanker.
…Boeing received detailed proprietary information about the EADS bid; corresponding information was given to EADS North America concerning the Boeing bid.
…Source selection information is data critical to the Air Force’s making a decision on which bid to select and could include technical data about the competing aircraft as well as financial information. Defense News and The Seattle Times initially reported Friday on the Air Force’s mistake. The Times said the data included crucial pricing information on the competing bids.
Well…GOSH. Now ALL that awful Boeing uncertainty is just conveniently cleared up, isn’t it? And they can adjust whatever they need to, to beat EADS into submission without all that bullshit screaming about “American jobs lost” if they blew the bid (As everyone knows, “Alabama” jobs aren’t “American“, especially since they might not even be “UNION”.). DAMN, that’s great. And the Washington Senator girls get culpable deniablility, because it was a clerical Air Force error (Oh! BAD Air Force!), so their bosoms can heave HUGE sighs of relief that they didn’t have to go to bat against Richard Shelby again. For SURE, there’ll be a little something in someone or two or three’s stocking SOMEwhere, even though it was serendipity, right?
Oh, I know. Color me a cynic. I guess it’s life lessons for me ~ NOTHING’S ever been quite that convenient, so I project my bitterness.
It’s what keeps me going.
Biz, Politics | tree hugging sister | 
November 22, 2010 9:41 am
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This is way O/T, but…
http://stopshouting.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-rebuttal-to-progressive-who.html
Oh, yeah ~ saw that earlier this morning.
Point 1. Now, no matter who wins the contract, this will be in the courts for years. If I were the losing bidder, I would sue for the loss of profit from getting awarded the contract, and I would fully expect to win.
Point 2. Has anyone else noticed that ever since they made the “procurement officer specialist” in the military that the speed of getting equipment to the fleet has gotten slower? The V-22 was expected in the fleet within a year when I was a second lieutenant in 1986. We still don’t have the EFV. The A-12 and P-4 were complete wastes of money. All the major defense contractors are merged because they can’t afford to lose the single contracts now available, so they finagle the system to somehow always get a piece of it.
In WWII we fielded dozens of aircraft type within just a few years. Now it takes dozens of years to produce just a few aircraft.
I think this only proves that we don’t really need all that technology if we can do so long without it and still be the biggest butt kickers on the planet.
1. Yep. Not only did that, this is a MAJOR violation of contracting law. That sort of data is strictly FOUO until after the contract is awarded.
2. I’ve noticed. And it’s not only within the military — it’s true for Federal procurement across the board. It’s just more obvious with the military.
They should just split the buy, yeah it will cost more but we need to get new planes. The Airbus plane is flying already, Boeing’s is not. Just quit F@#$^*g around and buy something.