A bad day for Air Force procurement

I wouldn't want to have been at the Air Force's acquisition office yesterday.After the Darleen Druyun scandal and the pressure from Sen. John McCain, you would think that the Air Force would have bent over backwards to make the tanker procurement fair and above board. It should have been impervious to attack.But the scrutiny might have pushed them too far the other way because there may have been a perception that Boeing went into the competition with an advantage. Maybe in trying to counteract that, the Air Force gave the EADS-Northrop Grumman team the advantage.That's the sense I get from .Your read those seven counts and you wonder, what was going on? For example, in count No. 4, GAO says the Air Force misled Boeing telling them they met a key performance measure, but later changed their mind. But they never told Boeing.I know this isn't an information technology contract, and I know I don't want to get into covering the aerospace industry. But my question is what lessons are here for other contractors? What impact will this have? Will agencies be even more risk adverse? Will companies be more apt to protest?Post your comments here or send me your thoughts at nwakeman@1105govinfo.com and I'll post them for you.