Dear Santa,

DEAR SANTA,

Word is, you keep a running list of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. We salute you for undertaking what is surely a huge and thankless task.

In fact, it’s such a big job that we fear you might overlook certain particularly naughty and nice people. That’s why we’re offering this amicus curiae — an editorial “friend of the court” brief, as it were.

You see, there’s a company known as EADS — the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. — whose folks have been very nice this year, and we’re hoping you’ll reward them accordingly.

Here’s the story. Back in 2008, when they were in partnership with Northrop Grumman, they won a big fat contract to build aerial tankers for the U.S. Air Force. We’re talking $40 billion worth of airplanes.

People on the central Gulf Coast were beyond excited, Santa. The tankers would’ve been assembled in Mobile at a $600 million plant that would have employed about 1,500 people.

But speaking of naughty, along came EADS’ arch rival, the Boeing Co., which convinced the government to cancel the award and hold another round of bidding.

Northrop threw up its corporate hands and pulled out of the competition. Not EADS, though. Armed with the confidence that it has the better plane — remember, the Air Force picked its tanker two years ago — EADS went head to head with Boeing in the new round of bidding.

Now everybody’s waiting nervously to see who wins.

You might think coastal residents would be encouraged by a noted defense analyst’s recent prediction that EADS will get the contract, but the agony and ecstasy of winning and losing in 2008 has kept folks pretty skittish. Plus, they don’t — and shouldn’t — discount the fact that Boeing wields an enormous amount of political influence in Washington.

That’s where you come into the picture, Santa. Now that you know how nice EADS has been this year, and that Boeing has been its usual naughty self, know this, too: EADS’ refueling tanker is bigger than Boeing’s, it holds more fuel, it can fly farther, and pilots rave about its performance.

So when you load your sleigh later this month, how about including a big, brightly wrapped gift-tagged “Merry Christmas to EADS and the Gulf Coast”?

Trust us, Santa. It’s the right thing to do.

Source / copied from: http://blog.al.com/press-register-commentary/2010/12/editorial_its_clear_santa_boei.html