Yo, Gareth...

The only one "caught out" here is Dick Cheney's Halliburton. No me...

If you'll recall, I protested loudly and often about Halliburton being awarded contratcs as a *single bidder* and woarned that this smacked of corruption... But Teribus and other (perhaps you, I don't remember) came to Halliburton'sand Cheneny's defense.

"Well, Halliburton is the only company that can do these jobs!" was what we heard over and over.

Well, danged, Gareth, it was construction and oil line stuff. There are lots of folks doing that that ain't Halliburton...

Then I pointed out that Dick Cheney was still being compensated to the tune of $1.4M a year by Halliburton. But Teribus says some thing to the effect that "Hey, this is deferred income and doesn't matter..." 'er something very close to that... Heck, he'll be by later to say that I'm on drugs 'cause I miseed a word or two... But, bottom line, Cheney is gettin' $1.4M a year from Halliburton and Hallibutron got the contract *without* having any competition to have to bid against...

Fast forward to last week:

Auditors within the *Defense Department*, not the White House, not the G.A.O. but the *Defense Department* discovered the overcharges for fuel deliveries to the tune of at least $61M, which ain't chump change.....

Now fast forward to the *White House* being *notified* by the Defense Department of the over charges and you have Bush spin folks burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to respond, especially given the fact that the initial contract sniffs heavily of favoritism and cronyism. Well, when at dawn, after a night's full of PR spinfolk spinning various mythological explanations so as to not reopen the original protest of Halliburton getting the contract without having to compete... And...

...ahhhh, what they came up with was a short statement that Bush would be given to deliver:

"Well, if anyone has over charged us they'll have to pay it back..."

Yeah, sometimes even the Bush folks just find the, ahhhh, truth to be the best way out and this was one of those occasions...

Why, because the Defense Department had Halliburton "dead to rights" and there was abosolutely *NO* wiggle room...

I do give credit to the Bush folks on this one in recognizing that a bigger and bettter lie isn't always the best way out of a jam...

Now, Gareth, if you can find any illogic in this explanation of events then I mean it. Send me some of what you are smokin'...

Bobert