After losing to Vicki Hartzler in November following his seventeen terms in Congress, many assumed that former Rep. Ike Skelton would fade into the limelight… which is why this was surprising.
Ike Skelton was appointed to the EADS North America Board of Directors in April 2011. Globally, EADS is the parent company of some of the most recognized brands in the international aerospace and defense sector, including Airbus...
A major player among defense and military contractors, EADS is a European company most well-known to Americans for troubles with their Airbus-model airliners and for tussling with US-based Boeing over a DOD contract.
Hiring Ike Skelton, a career politician and the former Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, to sit on their North American Board of Directors is a superficial ploy to gain insight, intelligence, and access into the American Military establishment in order to have an “inside man” to shore up their chances of scoring defense contracts with the Department of Defense.
And while continuing to work at what he is passionate about would usually be lauded, the circumstances surrounding this situation has turned Ike Skelton into a glorified lobbyist, for a European company no less, and a turncoat to the people he represented by throwing his support behind (and drawing a paycheck from) an overseas contractor instead of an American one.
Much like he distastefully told Rep. Akin on the floor of the House, he has told American contractors and their thousands of employees to “stick it.”
- B.H.
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