The NRCC put this video out a couple of weeks ago, as it turns out, a couple of weeks too soon.
It mocks this MSNBC Rachel Maddow ad, in which she uses the Hoover Dam to illustrate her belief that America should still come together as a nation to do great things.
Apparently Maddow has never heard of the snail darter and the dune sagebrush lizard. Her fellow progressives have, and have used them as showstoppers on projects similar to the Hoover Dam.
Can there be a clearer example of the emptiness of Maddow’s ad, than the decision by the administration that she supports, to kill the XL Keystone pipeline? Is there a more obvious example out there of this president’s intentionally halting real progress in the name of leftist “progress,” than this decision?
Update: The first GOP candidate out of the gate with a reaction to the XL scuttle — Romney.
Boston, MA – Mitt Romney today made the following statement on President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline:
“President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline is as shocking as it is revealing. It shows a President who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy. If Americans want to understand why unemployment in the United States has been stuck above 8 percent for the longest stretch since the Great Depression, decisions like this one are the place to begin. By declaring that the Keystone pipeline is not in the ‘national interest,’ the President demonstrates a lack of seriousness about bringing down unemployment, restoring economic growth, and achieving energy independence. He seems to have confused the national interest with his own interest in pleasing the environmentalists in his political base.”
Update: The Perry camp just released this response to the president’s XL decision.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s decision to reject the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline:
“President Obama has decided to pander to his left-wing base and environmental radicals at the expense of American jobs and our national energy security. He chose Chinese energy security over American energy security. As Iran threatens to choke off the world’s energy supply, the decision to turn down a viable energy source from Canada is simply short-sighted.
“This decision not only goes against common sense, but against the recommendation made yesterday by his own Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which recommended permitting of new pipelines.
“With record fuel prices and staggering job losses under Obama, you would think he would put aside political posturing and give the American economy a much-needed shot in the arm. President Obama should have chosen jobs and energy security over political appeasement. He is wrong.”
Mistake in Mitt’s diagnosis, this administration is not trying to please the “environmentalists”, it is trying to destroy America’s might.
Good for Romney. Finally, something I can respect from him.
As to the ad, though, it is a well-intentioned waste of money. Why do I say that? Because this parody ad is a perfect example of a “knowledge trap.” Anybody who knows what this ad is mocking doesn’t need to see an ad which mocks it. Anyone who doesn’t know the original is not going to understand the parody—which hangs on disliking Maddow and one particular ad of hers, instead of being able to stand alone. Anyone who is not already in the camp of those who despise Rachel Maddow and want to see Keystone become a reality will not be persuaded by this ad, which is diffuse and wimpy.
I have some small experience with parody—some of it here at PJM—and I know how fragile the sands are upon which it rests. The money spent to produce this anti-Maddow, anti-MSNBC ad could have been put to far better use explaining in a few well-chosen sentences just why Keystone is good—and why Obama’s opposition to it is wrong and wrong-headed.
The President of the US has decided it will be better to have Canadian crude oil transported by ship across the Pacific Ocean so that it can be refined in unregulated Chinese refineries only to then have the refined fuels shipped back across the Pacific to be put into the US market, as opposed to the alternative where the Canadian Crude Oil is piped directly to US refineries across land, for use in the US.
This is an example of what the environmental world calls “efficient”.
Right on target, Frank.
– is from California’s Central Valley and should know about the snail darter — or just plain know better that the Hoover Dam couldn’t be built today. She has to adhere to the company line; Lean Forward is now Bend Over.
Let us also see how the media wing of the Obama Administration (you know, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, Huffington Post, NY Times, Time, Newsweek) handle this and explain this. If they do as I believe they will do nothing will better show their political “whore-ness” than this.
The parody would be better if Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) had made it.
He decided that there would be no more drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, on land or off our shores, ignoring court orders and making a mockery of the permit process, while costing the nations hundreds of thousands of potential jobs.
Hope and change has left 25 million Americans unemployed, but our President doesn’t care about jobs in the fossil fuel industry. He would rather trumpet the decline in the unemployment rate, which happens as discouraged people stop looking for work. As a result, labor force participation has plummeted to 64%, the lowest in decades.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_transformational_tyrant.html#ixzz1jqgFgqqI
Good job, WLG.