When evaluating proposals for a contract, past performance (i.e., how well a contractor performed in past engagements) is usually one of the key factors that is given significant weighting for the purposes of selecting a qualified contactor. In this case, ‘past performance’ appears to either have been ignored or re-defined in some political context.
A guy called in to Rush yesterday and said past failures were actually an assurance to get the next contract - as long as the contractor didn’t finger the gov’t as to blame for the failure.