In a stunning announcement Friday, the Pentagon skipped over Boeing and awarded a massive $40 billion contract for a new fleet of refueling tankers to a Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautics Defense and Space (EADS). While Air Force officials claimed the choice of the KC-45 tankers jointly developed by Grumman and Airbus' parent company was based on its superior design, politicians in both parties are howling about the devastating economic impact on U.S.-based Boeing. And they might just have John McCain to thank for it.
Back in 2004, McCain launched a one-man to crusade to undo the scandal ridden lease for Boeing aerial refueling tankers based on the 767 design. Subsequent congressional investigations showed a systematic failure of the Air Force's procurement process in opting for a lease of the Boeing aircraft that would be more expensive that purchasing the tankers outright. While Air Force officials blamed one Pentagon official about to start a her new career at Boeing as responsible for swinging the deal to hr new employer, Senator McCain was having none of it. As the Washington Post reported in November 2004:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has conducted an equally vigorous campaign against the lease, said in releasing the internal Pentagon communications in a speech on the Senate floor that the missives reflect a "systemic Air Force failure in procurement oversight, willful blindness or rank corruption."
McCain said top Air Force officials have recently been trying to "delude the American people" into believing that a single person is responsible for misconduct in the $30 billion leasing plan -- namely, Darleen A. Druyun, the Air Force contracting official who pleaded guilty two months ago to overpricing the tankers as a "parting gift" to Boeing before she became one of the firm's executives.
"I simply cannot believe that one person, acting alone, can rip off taxpayers out of billions of dollars," said McCain, who said he will keep pursuing internal Defense Department and Bush administration communications until "all the stewards of taxpayers' funds who committed wrongdoing are held accountable."

In the fallout from the reversal of the Boeing lease, Air Force Secretary James G. Roche and Marvin R. Sambur, the Air Force's top acquisitions manager, resigned several days before McCain's speech. (As the Post noted, emails revealed that "Roche asked a lobbyist for Boeing Co. to use the company's Washington contacts to 'quash' a deputy undersecretary of defense and make him "pay an appropriate price.")
For his part, John McCain has made his role in unearthing the Boeing scandal and billions of dollars the lease would have wasted a centerpiece of his campaign for the White House. In October 2007, the McCain web site proclaimed that "in one successful effort, John McCain eliminated up to $2 billion in wasteful and corrupt spending in the Boeing tanker deal" and boasted of his being named a "Taxpayer Hero" by Citizens Against Government Waste. During the November 28, 2007 CNN/YouTube GOP presidential debate, McCain championed his efforts to scuttle the Boeing deal:

"I have the record of fighting against wasteful spending. I have a clear record of winning. I saved the taxpayers $2-billion on a bogus Air Force Boeing tanker deal where people went to jail."

None of which is to suggest that McCain's actions were improper. Far from it, the original Boeing lease deal was shockingly corrupt. It is with good reason that Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense concluded, "It was probably the best example of oversight in the 108th Congress."
More importantly, it appears that on the merit, the jointly developed Grumman-EADS tanker is the better choice to replace the aging American fleet of 600 refueling planes. As the Post reported:

Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, commander of the Air Mobility Command, said the Northrop-EADS plane was chosen because it could carry "more passengers, more cargo, more medical patients, could offload more fuel and had more flexibility, more dependability and more availability."

But while Boeing spokesman William A. Barksdale acknowledged "obviously we are very disappointed with this outcome," Congressmen from districts home to Boeing assembly plants are furious with the decision to award the tanker deal to a consortium including the company's European rival.

Republican Todd Tiarht (R-KS), whose Wichita district would have performed much of the Boeing tanker work, complained, "We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers." Democratic Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), whose state boasts Boeing largest plant, echoed Tiarht;

"We are outraged that this decision taps European Airbus and its foreign workers to provide a tanker to our American military. This is a blow to the American aerospace industry, American workers and America's men and women in uniform."

In addition to Murray and other Washington representatives, Boeing's chief supporters in Congress included none other than Dennis Hastert, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and former Speaker of the House. (Boeing had previously announced that Chicago would be its new corporate headquarters.) It's no wonder why the Everett Washington Herald wrote just before the state's February 5th GOP caucus:

"U.S. Sen. John McCain is no stranger to Washington, and some might argue he's no ally of The Boeing Co."

Of course, not everyone is upset with John McCain. Some Republicans who normally find themselves in the "Bash France Caucus" are only too happy to see the Pentagon award billions to Airbus. Alabama Republican Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby were the winners in the tanker derby:

The EADS/Northrop Grumman team plans to perform its final assembly work in Mobile, Ala., although the underlying plane would mostly be built in Europe. And it would use General Electric engines built in North Carolina and Ohio. Northrop Grumman, which is based in Los Angeles, estimates a Northrop/EADS win would produce 2,000 new jobs in Mobile and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.
"I've never seen anything excite the people of Mobile like this competition," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said. "We're talking about billions of dollars over many years so this is just a huge announcement."

Shelby simply called the Pentagon's decision, "great news for Alabama."
The announcement stunned analysts and Boeing backers alike. As the New York Times reported:

A Boeing victory was considered so certain that many Wall Street analysts had already factored the contract into their economic forecasts for the company. One senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, sent out a press release prematurely praising Boeing for its victory.
"This isn't an upset," said Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area research group. "It's an earthquake."

An earthquake, indeed, and one which may have resulted in part by John McCain's crusade against corruption and government waste. But coming as it does during wartime and a looming recession, the Pentagon's decision to send billions of dollars - and thousands of jobs - to Europe won't be well-received by voters here at home.
As John McCain may be about to learn, no good deed goes unpunished.