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WE CAN NOW SEE that, by awarding EADS/Airbus with the tanker contract, the Air Force didn't select the best plane for the job. Even professional earmark fighters, long suspicious of Boeing, should be able to make peace with a re-evaluation based on a very clear and disinterested reading of the original criteria.
After all, there's no virtue in choosing the wrong $35 billion product just to show your free trade bona fides.
The GAO report on the Air Force's KC-X tanker decision ought to put to rest the "tanker wars" for all but the most entrenched, bitter partisans. Independent pork-fighting groups -- or conservatives concerned with the integrity of competition in government procurement -- should re-evaluate their stance based on this new information.