I too am shocked.
It would be interesting to know how many of these whiners are not really Americans at all.
An alternative is that some, (a few have admitted it) are simply those who are looking at this as a venal self-opportunity...the best interests of our nation, its warfighters, and their capabilities...be damned.
Then finally, there is an ugly sectional rivalry to some of their sentiments, as if this is the War Between the States all over again.
I think there are 2 points that will get a lot of attention.
1) The report says the AF did not do the analysis to show that NG/EADS met the requirement to be capable of refueling all current fixed wing aircraft. And the wording tends to point to some of the faster airplanes not the V-22 as suspected.
2) NG/EADS did not meet the requirement to provide service support within 2 years. They had been reminded at a mid-point review that this was required and they still didn't do it. This was a requirement. That is a show stopper. That means they didn't meet all the requirements and the contract should not have been awarded to them.
In a legal sense it can be argued that not only should NG/EADs not have won but in fact they should have been eliminated and that Boeing actually won based on the RFP.
I expect to hear a lot more about this in the near future.
Here is the link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3619962/Full-Redacted-GAO-Tanker-Decision
Here is the quote for item 2 in my comment above:
from page 54 of the GAO report
“It is a fundamental principle in a negotiated procurement that a proposal that fails to conform to a material solicitation requirement is technically unacceptable and cannot form the basis for award.” A paragraph later it goes on to say: “In sum, the Air Force improperly accepted Northrop Grumman’s proposal, where that proposal clearly took exception to a material solicitation requirement.