>>>Can you accept that the contracts were awarded not on the merit but on the political and personal connections?
>
>This is an association fallacy in the absence of reasonable grounds. For Michelle O to have gone to school with executives in some of the awardees is neither surprising nor damning without further evidence.

The First Lady connection is one minor piece of the puzzle. The web of corruption and influence in the sausage factory of DC is a orchastra of many such pieces. Some more obvious and onerous than others.

Full Disclosure : The following is from an editorial and I fully admit I have not had time to fully research each of the connections mentioned
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-obama-care/102813-676947-jarrett-balkissoon-wedding-influenced-cgi-selection.htm?p=full

- CGI Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada's CGI Group
- Its performance on Ontario, Canada's health care medical registry for diabetes sufferers was so poor that officials ditched the $46.2 million contract after three years of missed deadlines, the Washington Examiner has reported.
- CGI is also the company behind the $2.7 billion failed, Liberal-launched Canadian Gun Registry that was so plagued with corruption and mismanagement it brought on an investigation by Canadian Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
- George Schindler, CGI Group president for U.S. and Canada, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company won the ObamaCare contract
- the Daily Caller reports that Michelle Obama's college roomie Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of '85, is a senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million ObamaCare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov.
- Valerie Jarrett's daughter, Laura, is married to Tony Balkissoon. He is the son of Bas Balkissoon, a member of the Ontario legislature whose jobs have included, among other things, a stint as parliamentary assistant to the minister of Health and Long-Term Care from 2007-10.
- Both President Obama and Balkissoon, the Liberal MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) for Scarborough-Rouge River in Ontario, were recently in Chicago for Balkissoon's son's wedding to Jarrett's daughter. Ontario campaign finance records show CGI also donated money to Canada's Liberal Party, to which Balkissoon belongs.
- "The Balkissoon-Jarrett marriage is one of several links between Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals and Obama. From 2000 until 2002, David Axelrod, another key adviser to the president, was a paid McGuinty strategist," reported the Star on June 20, 2012.