Security

Stealth Jet Gets Online Push, as a Jobs Program

The Defense Secretary has made himself perfectly clear: The military already has plenty of $340 million stealth fighter jets. But military and industrial supporters of the F-22 Raptor keep pushing to buy more and more of the ultra-advanced aircraft. Their latest tactic involves rebranding the plane as a jobs program, and launching an online "grass-roots" […]

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The Defense Secretary has made himself perfectly clear: The military already has plenty of $340 million stealth fighter jets. But military and industrial supporters of the F-22 Raptor keep pushing to buy more and more of the ultra-advanced aircraft. Their latest tactic involves rebranding the plane as a jobs program, and launching an online "grass-roots" campaign to keep the F-22's production lines open.

Hang around WashingtonPost.com and other DC-oriented websites for long enough, and you'll see banner ads like this one:

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Clicking on the ad takes you to PreserveRaptorJobs.com, a one-page site that urges visitors to write President Obama in support of the jet. "Keeping the production line of this model aerospace program open is not another bailout; rather, it simply requires that the new administration release funds already authorized by Congress to continue a successful program," the site insists.

Maybe. But there's certainly more at stake than just a single fighter program, due to end in two years after
183 planes. Inside the Beltway and across the blogosphere, there's a furious debate over whether or not to treat weapons systems as economic stimulus -- and throw more money at them, in the name of jobs. If the
Raptor becomes part of the economic recovery, there's a decent chance all sorts of other ships, planes, and fighting vehicle programs will get cash infusions, too.

The PreserveRaptorJobs.com site doesn't mention who is behind the letter-writing campaign. But Raptor-maker Lockheed Martin features a prominent link to the effort on its F-22 page. And a quick search reveals that the pro-fighter site sits on the servers of DC-area public relations firm Democracy Data & Communications. The company specializes in ginning up "grass-roots" campaigns for Fortune 500 conglomerates -- and increasing donations to their political action committees.

According to SourceWatch, the firm has also built and hosted sites for Microsoft, Fannie Mae, Ford Motor Company, and others. In 2005, Democracy Data & Communications CEO B.R. McConnon was brought before the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee, during an investigation into tribal lobbying. Also testifying that day was convicted influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. McConnon and his firm did not immediately return calls, requesting comments for this story.

UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman was all up on this, last week.

[On target: Jeff Quinton]

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