Even the Liberal Media Doesn’t Want a Keystone Fight, So Why Does Obama?

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Even the Liberal Media Doesn’t Want a Keystone Fight, So Why Does Obama?

Posted By Daniel Greenfield On February 12, 2015 @ 9:43 am In The Point | 8 Comments



Pipeline Closeup Underside by Ken Kistler

The strangest thing about the Keystone fight is that no one except Obama even seems to want it anymore. The media has backed away from the environmental arguments.

The Washington Post’s editorial sneers at Republicans for the vote, but concedes that Keystone isn’t an environmental threat and that there’s no sense in fighting it.


Despite what you might have heard, the pipeline wouldn’t kill the planet, nor would it supercharge the economy. You don’t have to take our word for either assertion: The State Department has said so; nonpartisan energy experts have said so; The Post’s Fact Checker has said so. Keystone XL should have been treated like a routine infrastructure project from the beginning of the permitting process — six years ago. Instead, the issue has been blown far out of proportion.

For all its initial bad faith, the WaPo piece shoots down the environmentalist arguments. This is the new Dem party that realizes it needs to connect to the white working class. Its advice to Obama is make a deal.


Mr. Obama would be wise to sign the bill and get Keystone off of the national agenda or strike a deal with Republicans in exchange for a concession of environmental significance.

The message out of the New Yorker is similar combined with suggestions that even Obama doesn’t want a Keystone fight.


Keystone XL is one of the few G.O.P. priorities in which the philosophical gulf between Obama and congressional Republicans is relatively narrow. In private, Obama has been dismissive of environmentalist claims that building Keystone XL would significantly affect climate change, and his State Department, with some caveats, came to the same conclusion in an environmental-impact statement…

So why doesn’t Obama have that discussion with Congress instead? What would the G.O.P. be willing to trade to get Keystone approved? A carbon tax? A large infrastructure project? Codifying the E.P.A.’s climate regulations into law? From the White House’s perspective, the Keystone XL pipeline should be an ideal policy to give away in a trade: it’s a major issue that Republicans care a great deal about but one that Obama seems to view as a sideshow.

You can find variations of this conclusion across the media spectrum. While they’re careful to blame Republicans, in fact the GOP is advancing a bipartisan bill that there really is no reason to oppose.

The media can’t come up with a reason to fight this. Obama supposedly doesn’t care. So why is he going to the mattresses?

Short answer, because Obama isn’t the pragmatist that the media likes to pretend. He’s a radical and deeply petty. He’s going to fight this because it challenges his power. He’s going to fight this because it’s really all he knows how to do.


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[Free Vulcan]

Because he's a smirky punk bully that only understands getting his face stomped into the concrete. Until you politically bust his skull open, he'll just keep poking your chest.

[Formerly Once-Ler]

Short answer, because Obama isn’t the pragmatist that the media likes to pretend. He’s a radical and deeply petty. He’s going to fight this because it challenges his power. He’s going to fight this because it’s really all he knows how to do.

As is the case with most extremists.  If they knew how to negotiate to get the best outcome they wouldn't be extremists.

This article points out that Obama knows his position is unpopular with the public, he doesn't care about the pipeline, but he can't think of anything he'd rather have in trade.  Obama would watch the world burn before admitting he was wrong to fight this.  Now it's a matter of pride.