It is official: Tiahrt’s tanker deal has sank like a rock

It is now official; according to The Wichita Eagle, June 13, 2005, Boeing’s tanker deal has gone down for the final count. It sank.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt and Sen. Pat Roberts – both from Kansas, pushed for the new military tanker transport program on Capitol Hill. Tiahrt's tanker support was so strong that he was nicknamed "Tanker Tiahrt" by colleagues.
Also according to the Eagle:

“What was once the lonely complaint of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. --that an Air Force plan to lease 100 767 jets as tankers was unnecessary and too expensive -- is now accepted wisdom on much of Capitol Hill. And while no one has suggested that Congress' most forceful tanker supporters did anything illegal, the program's critics are saying lawmakers contributed to the atmosphere that bred scandal. Their pursuit of jobs for their constituents, no matter the cost, pressured the Air Force and Boeing to push ahead with a flawed program, McCain said.”

Tiahrt, realizing he has nothing to show for the time he has wasted representing the Wichita district of Kansas, has refused to face that reality. According to the Eagle:

"We did everything right" on Capitol Hill, he said. The failed tanker plan, he added, came from "Boeing shooting itself in the foot and (McCain) having animosity toward the company."

Adding to the problem is the buy-out of Boeing by Onex Corp. This has meant not only lay-offs but pay cuts and reduced health benefits for those still trying to work at the former Boeing facility.
And what will Tiahrt do about all of this? Nothing-- he is a good capitalist and realizes that the rights of an employer are always more important than the rights (Actually a total lack of rights) of workers. Tiahrt wanted to get the jobs, not protect jobs that already existed.
Is this likely to hurt him at re-election time? Don’t count on that. The Democrats are in disarray and he can always count on the doped-out religious fundamentalists, whose churches continue to turn out their zombies, during election time, no matter how bad Tiahrt rips them off.