Lincoln Group: Two young conmen with lots of marks in spendthrift Pentagon

[BurtWorm]

We're in the middle of a gilded age to beat all gilded ages...

http://www.cjrdaily.org/the_audit/times_scores_with_profile_of_d.php



According to the Times, Bailey had an uncanny ability to sell foolhardy investors on foolhardy ideas. Shortly after graduating from college, he moved to San Francisco and raised millions of dollars to found a company that planned to manufacture electricity-generating shoes that would be capable of powering portable electronic devices. "You would have been proud," Bailey wrote in a letter to his mentor, "had you seen this 23-year-old kid pitching, with no product, no customers, no business plan."


In turn, according to the Times, the mentor gave Bailey some invaluable advice: "I told him, 'When in trouble, go to D.C.,' and the kid listened."


From milking the get-rich-quick daydreamers in Silicon Valley it was apparently a short leap to milking the build-democracy-quick daydreamers at the Pentagon. In a short period of time, Bailey and his partner started and abandoned a scrap-metal business in Iraq, teamed up with a well-connected consulting firm, won a $5 million contract, and with minimal fanfare began racking up fake news clips in Iraqi papers. Along the way, according to the Times, the Lincoln group continued to win government contracts by overselling its business credentials, partnerships, and connections in Iraq.


"Lincoln won its contracts after claiming to have partnerships with major media and advertising companies, former government officials with extensive Middle East experience, and ex-military officers with background in intelligence and psychological warfare," reported the Times. "But some of those companies and individuals say their associations were fleeting."


Fleeting or not, the rise of the Lincoln Group is an uplifting story for the ages -- one that should give hope to every erstwhile dot-com failure still looking for easy riches. After all, if the Pentagon will put the electronic-shoe guy in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East, whom won't they hire?

...

[chalky]

1. .

[mitchum]

2. The true welfare queens

welfare queens

[Mnemosyne]

3. .

[ArbustoBuster]

4. It's as if the Bush administration goes out of their way...

...to find the least qualified people possible.

[mitchum]

6. That's because it's about the looting, not the competency

bushco wants OUR money to be wasted

[BurtWorm]

5. kick