Because you value Happy Talk

I love stuff like this, because I know the answer. If you ask hard questions or provide tough news, you get pushed aside or ignored. If you work for the wrong person, you get fired. Now and then you work for someone who demands the right answer, or at least the answer you have - un-garnished by what you think your boss wants to hear. When you have sycophants working for someone who has no problems telling a half-truth, you get this.

Two local members of Congress are pressing the Pentagon to explain why the cost of closing Hampton's Fort Monroe has increased 298 percent.

Reps. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-Newport News, and Thelma Drake, R-Norfolk, have sent a letter to the Defense Department. They are demanding to know why costs have increased to an estimated $288 million and whether the initial estimate considered the expense of environmental cleanup.

The historic post, headquarters for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, is scheduled to close by 2011, part of a large streamlining approved by Congress that will shutter about 22 major bases nationwide. Cleaning up Monroe is expected to be costly because the moat-encircled fort is thought to be littered with unexploded munitions.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued a report last month showing the cost of closing the Army fort has risen from a 2005 estimate of $72.4 million to a 2008 budget estimate of $288.1 million. The GAO report didn't make clear why the cost increased.

"How can the current estimated cost increase be explained?" Scott and Drake asked in a letter to Alex Beehler, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment.

The answer is; you get what you reward. Just like our shipbuilding problems. Staff Weenie or Contractor Puke; "It will cost between $7 and $10, but it looks like the most likely cost will be $9.45." Boss Flag Officer or SES; "Good, lets call it $6.85 each. I had dinner with my old friend from Annapolis days who now works for Spacely Sprockets - he says that what they can do it for."