Takes Flight

07 Apr 2008
Newsday criticizes Boeing for resorting to misplaced nationalism
Today, Newsday publishes a column criticizing Boeing for resorting to misplaced nationalism in challenging Northrop Grumman's win to build America's next generation of aerial refueling tankers.

In an op-ed, corporate attorney Jerome Reisman, who represents the kind of suppliers who will work with Northrop Grumman to build the new tanker, takes issue with how Boeing "is looking to wrap its losing bid for a new U.S. Air Force tanker aircraft inside the American flag."

"By doing so, they harm themselves, the Long Island defense industry and, ultimately, our national security," Reisman writes.

Reisman notes that after losing fair and square to Northrop Grumman, Boeing is now claiming the competition is unfair, and that its lobbyists are charging that Northrop Grumman's win jeopardizes American jobs and national security.

"It's the spin of a sullen loser," Reisman writes.

Reisman adds that Northrop Grumman won "because they offered a better airplane to the military and a better deal to the taxpayer. They also put in provisions that the bulk of the airframes would be manufactured in the United States along with the engines that will power them."

"For Boeing to now suggest American jobs will be lost while a significant amount of the subassemblies needed for their new airliner come from overseas makes them ripe with hypocrisy," given Boeing's extensive dealings with foreign countries in building its military and commercial aircraft, Reisman writes.

To read the entire column, go to:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oprei075641056apr07,0,1946475.story

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