Business

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, March 10, 2008 Air Force's tanker decision just flat wrong By Mike Benbow It's been more than a month since my last column. Some of my 17 faithful readers might have been perplexed by the short explanatory note that's appeared beneath my photo since late January. It said simply, "Herald business editor Mike Benbow is off." Colleague Eric Fetters told me nobody knew quite what to say, so they settled on "off." The truth is, I had a stroke. One night I was swapping fishing lies with friends at my fly-fishing club meeting in Everett. The next morning, I couldn't remember my computer password. Thinking I had a terrible cold, I went to the doctor. I went from there straight to the hospital, where I discovered I also didn't know my date of birth, my home address and lots of other stuff. Thanks to some good medical care and a lot of homework, my brain drain reversed itself. I now know my date of birth and my password. While it would be inaccurate to say that I'm completely back, at least I'm no longer "off." Let me thank those of you who heard things through the grapevine and sent cards and notes. They were appreciated. I thought the rest of you deserved a better explanation for my absence. Anyway, it's great to be back to work. Speaking of work, I've been thinking all week about how to write a thoughtful piece on the Air Force's decision to choose a new refueling tanker that's mostly built in Europe, over the Boeing Co.'s proposal to use a retooled 767 as a flying gas station. After all, the EADS-Northrop Grumman choice will be a brand-new plane that will be larger and have more functions than Boeing's offering. It was chosen by a careful process in which EADS won on virtually all counts. And Boeing has had some performance problems lately with several government contracts. Should it be rewarded for that? Shouldn't government have the same benefit as private industry to make competitors fight each other to produce the best product at the lowest cost? I thought about that all week, and came to the conclusion that I don't care how you rationalize it, the Air Force decision is just flat wrong. The government shouldn't be sending its military work to a foreign country. Air Force officials know the very idea is inflammatory. That's why they never use the word "EADS" when they talk about their decision. They're always talking about the "Northrop Grumman bid." Using the name of a U.S. company that is a minor player doesn't change the fact that the Pentagon hired a French company to build nearly all of its next-generation military refueling tanker. CNN commentator Lou Dobbs suggested the decision was an insult to the American worker. Call me a homer, but I think Dobbs nailed it. How do you tell a nation that is losing its major manufacturing jobs, leaving it with service work that pays a lot less, that its own government is jobbing out work to France? What's next? China announced Thursday that it wants to start its own aerospace industry. Will we be hiring it to build the next Air Force One? I'd bet we'd get a good price for it -- as long as we don't mind a few extra listening and tracking devices. OK, that idea is ludicrous. But so is hiring France to build the U.S. Air Force's refueling tanker. Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com.

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