The following editorial appeared Thursday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In a welcome, if belated, decision, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday halted the Pentagon’s star-crossed, corruption-tinged seven-year effort to replace its Elvis-era fleet of aerial refueling tankers.

The next president and his secretary of defense now will have the chance to run a sensible bidding process designed to get the best tanker at the best price. If that president turns out to be Republican Sen. John McCain, the irony will be spectacular. And so will the scrutiny.

Had Gates not acted, the Pentagon would have handed the $35 billion contract to the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., the parent company of Europe’s Airbus, and its American partner, Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles. The only other bidder, the Boeing Co., whose tanker program is part of its St. Louis-based defense unit, was frozen out by the Pentagon’s bidding timeline. So much for the idea that competition benefits the taxpayer.

McCain has some history with Boeing. The Arizona senator led a 2003 inquiry into a questionable $23 billion deal that would have seen Boeing build and lease 100 tankers to the Air Force. The investigation into the sweetheart deal resulted in prison sentences for a Boeing official and a Pentagon procurement officer.

Early this year, it was revealed that at least five of McCain’s former or current campaign officials were involved in lobbying the Pentagon and Congress on behalf of EADS. That has led Democrats to charge that he favored a European-based company over an American manufacturer.

Gates saw the political buzz saw being revved up. But whatever the reason, he made the right call.

“It is my judgment that in the time remaining to us, we cannot complete a competition that will be viewed as fair and competitive in this highly charged environment,” the secretary said. “I believe the resulting cooling-off period will allow the next administration to view objectively the military requirements and craft a new acquisition strategy for the KC-X (tanker) as it sees fit.”

Last year, after Boeing’s tanker lease deal blew up, the Pentagon again requested bids for a mid-sized tanker. Boeing offered a plane based on its 767 commercial jetliner. EADS/Northrop offered a bigger plane based on the Airbus 330.

To nearly everyone’s surprise, the Air Force chose Airbus last winter. Boeing protested, and the Government Accountability Office uncovered a laundry list of errors in the Air Force’s evaluation process. Perhaps the biggest: The Air Force decided it wanted a bigger tanker and didn’t tell Boeing.

The GAO report, amplified by jeers from Congress, embarrassed the Air Force into rebidding the contract. It did so in August. This time it asked for a bigger tanker, but it gave Boeing only eight weeks to design one. Boeing threatened to withdraw from the bidding.

That was the situation until Wednesday, when Gates called the whole thing off. As Gates noted, the Air Force’s aging KC-135 tankers can do the job until the new planes arrive. A few months’ delay will make little difference.

But the events of the past few months show that something is bizarrely out of kilter with the Air Force’s procurement operation. Gates is a capable man. In his last four months in office, he should devote some time to straightening that out.