As a result, Obama has been forced to come out of the shadows on Keystone and state clearly his position, which is clearly negative on the Keystone pipeline.
This position exposes Obama as an arrogant, insensitive, egocentric, ignorant and deceitful political hack, who is trying to appeal to the basest xenophobic instincts of the American people.
As of Friday, November 14, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill by an overwhelming majority, (252 to 161) to approve the construction of the Keystone pipeline from Alberta through the United States and south to the Texan refineries in southern United States. This is the ninth time that such a bill has passed Congress during the Obama administration.
The difference this time is that U.S. Senate, still controlled by the Democrats, (that is, until early in January, 2015) has decided to proceed to vote on a similar bill, this Tuesday, November 18, sponsored by the current Senator for Louisiana and a Keystone proponent, Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu.
According to Senator Landrieu, she has the support of all the current Senate Republicans (45) and 14 Democratic Senators. She has expressed confidence in obtaining the magic number 60 Senators in support, which will guarantee passage of this bill in both Houses.
In anticipation of this now very real possibility that this pro Keystone bill will pass, Obama, during his recent visit to Myanmar (formerly Burma)
defended his opposition to Keystone as follows:
“Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn’t have an impact on gas prices.”
What a despicable, deceitful and contemptible little man Obama is!
What a despicable, deceitful and contemptible little man Obama is! One can almost hear the disdain in his voice as he parrots anti-Keystone lobbyists’ talking points.
Obama is not referring to Canada, as America’s largest trading partner and its most loyal and trusted democratic neighbor and ally. A country that has fought with America during two World Wars, the Korean War and more recently at the request of the United States, fought bravely alongside the Americans in Afghanistan at great loss of human life and at enormous financial cost.
Instead Obama is clearly treating contemptuously Canada as if it was some rogue anti-democratic, anti-American misogynistic Middle Eastern potentate, pumping dirty oil and befouling the environment.
Obama is infamous for treating America’s closest allies- poorly and treating America’s sworn enemies- (Iran) deferentially. It is no wonder that Obama lacks close relationships with western leaders and is generally considered to be one of America’s most untrustworthy and spineless American leaders in modern day history.
Let us look more critically Obama’s actual above comments.
Firstly, Obama is lying through his smug teeth when he states that the Keystone pipeline “is providing Canada the ability to pump their oil.” Whereas the Keystone pipeline would provide a much-needed link between the Alberta oil sands and the Gulf Coast refineries, the absence of the Keystone pipeline
has not stopped the pumping of oil from the Alberta oil sands. In the absence of pipelines, west to British Columbia and south to the United States, there has been increased use of rail to transport Alberta crude to the American (160,000 barrels per day) and Asian markets, by way of Canada’s west coast. In addition, a eastern pipeline is being developed using an existing gas pipeline, to transport Alberta oil (estimated 1.1 million barrels per day) to Quebec and New Brunswick for refining, thus skipping the US entirely.
Obama is merely ignorantly parroting the anti-Keystone propaganda, that rejection of the Keystone pipeline will destroy Canada’s ability to pump Alberta oil. As has been shown, nothing could be further from the truth.
Secondly, Obama falsely suggests only Canadian oil will be transported through the proposed Keystone pipeline. This pipeline will also be used to transport U.S. light oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale to the Gulf Coast refineries. In other words, the Keystone pipeline is not an export pipeline, as Obama wrongly suggests.
It also makes economic sense for American oil companies and refineries to have both Canadian oil and American oil be transported by Keystone to the Gulf refineries, than for the same American companies to import higher-priced oil from Venezuela and the Middle East, to be refined in the Gulf Coast refineries.
Thirdly, Obama’s ignorance of basic economics 101 supply and demand is appalling. The oil markets are global. Everyone agrees, both critics and opponents, that the existence of the Keystone pipeline will increase the supply of oil in the world. And increased worldwide oil supply will ultimately lead to reduced gas prices. Conversely, restricting the supply of Canadian oil, will lead to Middle East oil-producing nations increasing the price of oil, which will lead to higher gas prices. Homer Simpson has a better grasp of oil and gas pricing than the U.S. clueless and highly over-rated current President.
Obama further added:
“I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is somehow lowering gas price.”
How intellectually dishonest! None of the Keystone’s proponents has ever suggested that Keystone would create a massive number of jobs.
The U.S. State Department has estimated that a total of 42,000 jobs will be created, taking into account the temporary construction jobs, the permanent maintenance jobs and the indirect jobs created to support this construction project.
Obviously, six key American labor unions, normally supportive of the Democrats,
view these proposed jobs as significant and hence are pushing their Democratic representatives to support the pro Keystone bill.
Once again, the mendacious Obama appears to be speaking out of two sides of his mouth. On one hand, Obama is constantly urging Congress to spend taxpayers’ money on infrastructure projects to create jobs. Yet he implies that the 1,179-mile Keystone infrastructure project, (which is to be privately financed) will not create much needed American jobs.
Obama’s whole pathetic opposition to the Keystone pipeline, has finally exposed him as an intellectual lightweight, way out of his depth on this energy/infrastructure file and apparently overly influenced by anti-Keystone lobbyists and special interests.
Obama’s dithering and mendacity on this whole file has even alienated many Democratic Congressmen and Senators and many of his Democratic supporters.
I predict Obama will become the most reviled and unpopular Democratic President since the Peanut President and Palestinian terrorist sympathizer, Jimmy Carter.
