With Pipeline, Obama Puts Politics Over Nation

Now that the White House has delayed a decision on the controversial Keystone pipeline from Canada until after the 2012 election, Charles Krauthammer wonders: Isn't this the same president saying, "We can't wait" to fix the US economy? Obama made the decision solely to "appease his environmentalists" and get them back on his side in the re-election campaign, writes Krauthammer in the Washington Post. What's worse, it's working.

"It’s hard to think of a more clear-cut case of putting politics over nation," writes Krauthammer, who says the pipeline would have created thousands of jobs immediately and made us more energy independent. The State Department has vetted environmental concerns exhaustively, he adds, and now Canada will probably let China get all that oil. "This from a president whose central campaign theme is that Republicans put party over nation, sacrificing country to crass political ends." (More President Obama stories.)