Dear America,
To his credit, The President finally took a page out of John Boehner's Republican play book. In order to prevent his partisans from being forced to take positions on the XL segment of the otherwise-already-built Keystone pipeline, he disapproved TransCanada's application for permission to build it. It really doesn't matter anyway. It might have generated three or four thousand jobs for periods of a few months along the course of the XL from Canada to Steele City, Nebraska, and it was supposed to create 35 (not 3,500 but only 35) permanent jobs, but that would have been barely a drop in a very large bucket that, incidentally seems to be almost full now anyway. What bothers me is the inelegant way in which Mr. Obama handled it.
The XL segment of the Keystone was a red herring from the beginning, and the Republicans got away with using it to bash Democrats for a couple of years. It should never have happened, and The President should have pointed that out in considerably more detail on Friday when he announced his rejection of the application. He should have pointed out that Hardisty is already connected to our Gulf Coast by the rest of the Keystone system, which rendered the XL segment superfluous from the start. Second, he should have pointed out that we are already exporting over 100 million gallons of petroleum distillates, including more than 40 million gallons of gasoline, every day, and that letting another country put our countryside in jeopardy so that it can make money from distillate exportation too is hardly in the best interest of the American people...that is, you. Third is the proof of that point. If TransCanada truly wanted to serve American interests rather than just increase its fortunes the easy way, the XL wouldn't have been planed to run from Hardisty to Steele City. It would have run from the eastern terminus of the current Keystone system in Wood River and Patoka, Illinois to the refineries in New Jersey, not the ones in Texas and Louisiana. We import oil into the refineries in New Jersey from the middle east because it is easier than hauling it in from the mid-west and the south. But if we had a pipeline from the Illinois terminals and refineries to their counterparts in New Jersey, that would make eastern oil production, from which we in Connecticut among other places get our gasoline, that much more secure. The Republicans never mentioned that American interest. They just nattered on about the Democrats putting what they characterize as a dubious environmental threat ahead of jobs for the American people...you again.
This is a pattern...the Republicans eating the Democrats' lunch because the Democrats don't even resist. And President Obama doing the same to them is nothing less than just deserts. But instead of sticking it to them good, he just stuck it to them politely, and tacitly. There should have been more noise. When John Boehner complained about "jobs bills" languishing in The Senate controlled by Democrats, no one pointed out that what he called jobs bills included bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the like. None of those bills--and he had the audacity to list them on his website--even mentioned jobs, much less extending unemployment coverage for the many who still hadn't found work to replace jobs extinguished by the great recession of George W. Bush and the Republicans. This time, it is the Democrats that won't have to embarrass themselves with finger pointing about an issue that can only hurt them. This time, instead of surrendering their lunch, the Democrats sat down, opened the brown bag and ate it...and the Republicans' too. No doubt the Republicans will still try to get some mileage out of the XL, and they will probably succeed because The President didn't preempt them on Friday and the Democrats don't seem terribly interested in disabusing them of their erroneous and contrived arguments. Just as in the case of Benghazi, the Republicans will keep on whipping the horse even though everyone can see its body laying dead there in the road. They'll preach to their own choir so that their base digs in that much farther, but in the end, it won't change anyone's mind. Still, it would have been nice to see our president hit that weak, center-of-the-plate fast ball out of the park. That's the good thing about the November election. No matter which Democrat is nominated, any Democratic president will have the sharper edge that the American people need to see. If we can just get someone to hold press conferences at 8:00 p.m. instead of in the early afternoon and stand up on his...or her...hind legs and object to the twisted rhetoric that Republicans foist on the American people...once more, you...maybe good things can continue to happen. And the Republicans are losing access to some of the issues that they blindly turn to as old reliables. Unemployment is back to where it was in 2008, which means that they can't credibly claim that President Obama hasn't fixed the job market. Real wages have started up again too. And as for the number of jobs being created without lowering taxes for businesses and the top 1%, the pace of creation is pretty impressive. The Republicans are all but disarmed. They still have their foot-shooting pistol though, and it just got reloaded.
Your friend,
Mike
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