Keystone Oil Pipeline — IXNAY!!!

And let’s drive a stake through its heart once and for all.

President Obama has REJECTED the Keystone Pipeline project.

YAY!!!

Republicans tried to back Obama into a corner.  They thought they had maneuvered him into one of those awkward “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” positions.  It was supposed to be a paralyzing dilemma:  veto the project and be portrayed as “job-killing” or approve the project and alienate environmentalists.

Obama had until sometime in February to approve or disapprove the Keystone project.  This was an amendment that Republicans attached to the two-month payroll tax cut extension.  Republicans thought he’d spend the entire two months squirming, paralyzed with indecision.  Instead, he quickly and decisively VETOED it.

Now THIS is the exact kind of in-your-face decisiveness we’ve been waiting for.  You go Mr. President.

A few months ago, Chris Christie was in this exact same scenario.  This was when he was still the Great Republican Hope.  There was a bill on his desk, which supposedly put him in that same rock/hard-place position.  If he signed the bill he’d alienate this group; if he vetoed it he’d alienate that group.  What would he do?  Chris Christie called a press conference, walked up to the podium, took out a pen and, without a second’s hesitation, vetoed the bill.

Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed over Christie’s bold decisiveness and “what’re you gonna do about it” manner.  And now President Obama is taking the same approach.

YES!!!

And the Republican hissy-fit has already started.  Someone from the National Republican Congressional Committee tweeted:

“U just turned ur back on 20k american workers & energy security what r u gonna do next?”

And that brings us to another rightwing talking point that’s been parroted endlessly by oil industry prostitutes and their gullible listeners:  The number of jobs that would have been created by the Keystone Pipeline is 6,000.  NOT 20,000.  Yes, 6,000 jobs is a lot of jobs.  Repairing and maintaining the infrastructure would create a lot more jobs than that.

Again, that number is 6,000.  NOT 20,000.  OK!?!?!?