gregorygarver.com

[slappingdummyman]

The Justice Department has just hired the company belonging to former Attorney General John Ashcroft for an 18 month long, 52.2 million contract for monitoring companies that manufacturing knee and hip replacement parts.The U.S. Attorney who handpicked John Ashcroft's company for the job is Christopher Christie, who formerly worked for John Ashcroft. Christie denies that his political ties with Ashcroft had anything to do with his company's selection, but claims he was chosen because of Ashcroft's honesty. Somehow, it takes five attorneys to handle this "monitoring" job. Besides Ashcroft, also chosen for the job were three former U.S. Attorneys, a New Jersey Attorney General, and a former attorney for the Federal Trade Commission.My question is...do political appointments always lead to lucrative payoffs within the governmental structure? Should our tax money be used in a "buddy system" to award contracts to political bedfellows?

[carolinae]

Always? No. Regularly? Yes!Both parties plus any of the odd ball parties tyhat might win elections here and there. BTW, it is illegal for many lower level workers to do the same thing. We can go to jail for it. (5 year moratorium for most govt workers to work for a company that does business with teh govt.)

[RM]

Of course it pays to have political connections. You don't think it was a coincidence that Haliburton was awarded a majority of the contracts to rebuild Iraq; a company that our illustrious VP Dick Cheny was a CEO of; sure it sucks, but until we as a nation pull our heads out of our cans and get involved and vote, this sad course of events will continue.