What is it about people named "Bob Jones?"

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 05:11 PM

You already know about Bob Jones University and it's place in the Christian firmament.  Now comes another Bob Jones to make life miserable for all the other people in the world with that common name.

Back on May 9, the Houston Chronicle reported:

Feds raid El Paso plant

Associated Press
EL PASO - Authorities raided an El Paso garment plant Tuesday, seizing documents and computerized records.

About 65 federal agents served a sealed search warrant at a National Center for the Employment of the Disabled clothing company, which makes military uniforms, said FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons. She would not discuss what prompted the warrant.

NCED has been the subject of another federal probe. Its contracts say 75 percent of its workers are supposed to be severely disabled. But a review found that only 7 percent are.

And of course the honorable, ethical gentleman behind this company was named...Bob Jones.  And the El Paso Times reported he quit the company shortly before the raid.  But not because the investigation was coming to a head.  Oh heaven forbid, no that wasn't it at all:

NCED spokesman Marc Schwartz said Jones' resignation on Monday was not related to the investigation but to an ongoing restructuring of NCED that will separate its nonprofit operations involving disabled workers from its various for-profit businesses.

What exactly was going on?  Well, NCED was huge, having been paid, according to the El Paso Times:

$235 million for battle uniforms and 70 percent of the military's chemical warfare protective suits under Javits- Wagner-O'Day, created by Congress to provide jobs to the blind and severely disabled.

And it was hot, hot, hot, because of...the war in Iraq.  Again, from the the El Paso Times:

Chamberlain acknowledges "that there were circumstances and factors impacting NCED resulting from surge demands placed on the company by federal procurement agencies in response to the war in Iraq, military activity in Afghanistan and related homeland security issues."

In the 15 months after the invasion of Iraq, Chamberlain said, the Pentagon ordered "hundreds of thousands of units of chemical protective suits, battle dress uniforms, fleece garments and other supplies" from NCED.

The number of NCED employees jumped from 851 to 1,800 in that period.

When all is said and done:

How many guys named Bob Jones will be found to be scumbags?

How many billions of dollars will turn out to have been stolen, misspent, or wasted on the war in Iraq?

And what is it about that name?