Republican Free Traders--But Only Kinda

The Air Force's $35 billion re-fueling tanker contract decision has generated simultaneously amusing, pathetic, bizarre and, without-the-grace-to-blush hypocritical sputterings from our political elite. The decision to award the contract to a team led by Northrop-Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) has caused much tooth gnashing.
Witness, for example, the statement of senators Pat Roberts, Sam Brownback and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Republicans all, as reported by the Seattle Post Intelligencer: "We have just met with the Air Force, and we remain unconvinced that the Airbus team will provide a better aircraft than the men and women of Boeing."
Thus opined these aerospace experts.
But oh, those Europeans! Roberts noted that much of the work will be done in France and Germany! Why, he blustered, thereby underscoring the soundbite idiocy of his party, the Pentagon's decision "supports a socialist kind of government."
This from members of a party committed to free trade, open markets and competition? Yes, it's so.
But it's not just Republicans. Here's a letter to Defense Secretary Gates from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA): "A bipartisan delegation of Senators from Washington state and Kansas today called on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ensure that the Air Force debriefs Boeing on the justification for their tanker contract decision this week."
It's remarkable, really, the coincidental aspect of the bipartisan nature of this missive, that members are from Washington state and Kansas. Why, could it be that both states have Boeing facilities?
Lost in the apoplectic reaction was the news, as reported by the International Herald Tribune, that "final assembly of the tankers would take place at a new plant that EADS plans to build near Mobile, Alabama. As a sweetener to its bid, EADS offered in January to build a second assembly line to produce a cargo version of the A330 for commercial use, raising the number of expected new jobs at the Alabama site to 1,300. Northrop and EADS have said the tanker program will eventually create as many as 25,000 new jobs in the United States through supplier contracts."

But the Republican Party's presidential candidate, that maverick John McCain, is--thankfully--a supporter of free trade. And if his defense of NAFTA in response to statements by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton isn't persuasive enough on philosophical grounds, why, there's always the not-so-veiled threat of payback/extortion/blackmail, call it what you will.
Said McCain, "one of our greatest assets in Afghanistan are our Canadian friends. We need our Canadian friends, and we need their continued support in Afghanistan. So what do we do? The two Democratic candidates for president say they're going to unilaterally abrogate NAFTA .... How do you think the Canadian people are going to react to that?"
Too bad McCain doesn't consult with Sen. Roberts. "Our Canadian friends," after all, have a "socialist kind of government" with universal health care.


But in defense of Republicans, we might call to mind Emerson's observation that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Although Batleby.com reminds us that "Emerson does not explain the difference between foolish and wise consistency."
Or hypocrisy.