Richard Shelby (Sen-Airbus)

As you have all heard by now (or read by now) the news of Alabama Republican knucklehead Senator Richard Shelby providing another reason why the Senate is broken by holding "Up or Down" votes on President Obama nominees, "Thee" emptywheel points to the key reason why Shelby is being an annoying jerk as usual

The key issue is that Shelby wants the Air Force to tweak an RFP for refueling tankers so that Airbus (partnered with Northrup Grumman) would win the bid again over Boeing. The contract had been awarded in 2008, but the GAO found that the Air Force had erred in calculating the award. After the Air Force wrote a new RFP (TWD note: RFP means "Request For Protocol") in preparation to rebid the contract, Airbus calculated that it would not win the new bid, and started complaining. Now, Airbus is threatening to withdraw from the competition unless the specs in the RFP are revised.

Essentially, then, Shelby’s threat is primarily about gaming this bidding process to make sure Airbus–and not Boeing–wins the contract (there’s a smaller program he’s complaining about, too, but this is the truly huge potential bounty for his state).

I understand why any Senator would fight for jobs in his or her state. And I understand that there was dirty corruption in this original contracting process.

But underlying the refueling contract is the question of whether the US military ought to spend what may amount to $100 billion over the life of the contract with a foreign company, Airbus. Particularly a company that the WTO found preliminarily to be illegally benefiting from subsidies from European governments.

Richard Shelby is preparing to shut down the Senate to try to force the government to award a key military function to a foreign company.

The demise of their "Country First" mantra continues under these people.

Funny enough, through his spokesman, Shelby has come out and said that the reason he is doing his holding is because (and you may laugh at little at this one) he unlike the Obama Administration is truly fighting terrorists:

He said the decision was part of a pattern on the part of the White House to put political concerns over fighting terror. Graffeo also suggested the holds were no big deal.

"The Obama Administration wants to read terrorists our Miranda rights and try them in U.S. courts but is impeding the processing of evidence that could lead to convictions," he said. "If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations, America would be a safer place."

Graffeo said Shelby "has made the Administration aware" of his concerns "and is willing to discuss them at any time."

Robert Gibbs wasted no time slamming Shelby

"If you needed one example of what's wrong with this town," he says, "if that's not the poster child of how this town works ... it boggles the mind to hold up qualified nominees for positions that are needed because he didn't get two earmarks."

Not a surprise though, Shelby had a totally different story under the Bush Administration in terms of appointees.

Unsurprisingly, Shelby had quite a very different attitude when a Republican sat in the White House. In early ’05 — shortly after winning his fourth term to the Senate — Shelby complained, “Far too many of the President’s nominees were never afforded an up or down vote, because several Democrats chose to block the process for political gain.” He added, “Inaction on these nominees is a disservice to the American people.”

Hypocrisy resides in their DNA.