King Kaufman's Sports Daily - All Salon

New, improved baseball playoff preview. Now with random factoids! Can Red Sox repeat?

The baseball playoffs open Tuesday with a triple-header. The first team to take its cuts will be the San Diego Padres, losingest bunch in the history of the postseason, having had to win five of their last six to avoid becoming the first team to ever make it this far with a losing record.

The bad news for San Diego is that it has to play the St. Louis Cardinals, the only club to win 100 games this year. The good news is that the Padres have transformed over the course of a few days.

Just last week, baseball purists were concocting arguments for why the rules should change to keep the likes of the Padres, then with a losing record, out of the playoffs. A few wins and an off day later, the Padres are … plucky underdogs! They’re Cleveland State, Valparaiso. It’s October Madness!

Tuesday’s action starts with the Padres at the St. Louis Cardinals on ESPN at 1 p.m. EDT, followed by the Boston Red Sox at the Chicago White Sox at 4 on ESPN and the New York Yankees at the Los Angeles Angels at 8 on Fox. The Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves get underway in Atlanta on Wednesday.

In honor of the sleek redesign Salon is rolling out this week, this column is proud to drop its former patented rambly playoff preview format in favor of a new, modern, quick-hitting, dynamic and, if I may say so, downright snazzy boldface-item gambit — just like most of the other playoff previews out there.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

NATIONAL LEAGUE

San Diego Padres vs. St. Louis Cardinals [PERMALINK]

Credentials: The Padres won the N.L. West with the poorest record of any playoff team in history, 82-80, a half-game worse than the 1973 New York Mets. The Cardinals had the best record in baseball for the second straight year, lapping the Central Division.

The Padres will win ’cause: Their best pitcher, Jake Peavy, outpitches Cy Young candidate Chris Carpenter twice, and San Diego is able to steal one of the other games. Carpenter, who threw 241 and two-thirds innings, 26 more than his previous career high, hit a wall in September and was terrible down the stretch. And hey, those ’73 Mets beat the best team in baseball, the Cincinnati Reds, in the playoffs.

The Cards will win ’cause: They’re the vastly superior team, even if Carpenter is terrible. They still have a tremendous lineup, even without injured Scott Rolen and usually injured Larry Walker. The rest of their pitching staff is pretty good too — the Cardinals led the league in earned-run average — even after losing reliever Al Reyes on the season’s final day. They can even catch the ball. Just about everywhere you look, including uniform design, the Cardinals are superior. If they don’t win this series, it’ll be one of the biggest playoff upsets in history.

Unlikely heroes: Woody Williams, San Diego. Mark Grudzielanek, St. Louis.

Random boldface factoid: On Aug. 17, 1976, in St. Louis, the Cardinals scored three runs in the first inning and went on to beat the Padres 9-4. Both teams were hopelessly out of it at the time and would each finish fifth in their six-team divisions, and the game had no historical significance at all.

Prediction: Cardinals in four

Houston Astros vs. Atlanta Braves [PERMALINK]

Credentials: Just as they did last year, the Astros overcame a horrendous start to charge to the wild card as one of the hottest teams in baseball. Just as they did last year, the Braves sashayed to the Eastern Division title despite the usual spate of predictions that their run of division crowns, begun in 1991 when they played in the West, would end.

The Astros will win ’cause: They’re hot. They played .625 ball over the last 72 games, including a 12-5 run at the end to hold off the Phillies. They have dominant pitching, with Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt the Big 3 starters and closer Brad Lidge all but unhittable. And they’re playing the Braves, whom they beat last year, and who are to losing in October what Rembrandt was to painting faces.

The Braves will win ’cause: The Jones boys, Chipper and Andruw, have got to start playing better in the playoffs someday. Tim Hudson and John Smoltz are formidable starters, though Smoltz has been nursing a sore shoulder. The Braves were tremendous at home this year, 53-28, and they get three home games in this series. Hudson can remind the Astros that having a Big 3 of starters doesn’t guarantee anything. Atlanta’s roster has turned over enough that maybe they’re ready to throw off their habit of getting bounced in October. If not, they still sometimes wait till after the first round to lose.

Unlikely heroes: Jason Lane, Houston. Brian Jordan, Atlanta.

Random boldface factoid: Ironically, as they say on TV, Game 1 of this series, Wednesday, will be played on both the 48th anniversary of Game 3 of the 1957 World Series, when the Yankees beat the Milwaukee Braves 12-3 to take a 2-1 series lead before losing in seven games, and the 47th anniversary of Game 4 of the 1958 World Series, when Warren Spahn shut out the Yanks to give Milwaukee a 3-1 lead before the Yankees won the last three games.

Prediction: Astros in five

- – - – - – - – - – - -

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Boston Red Sox vs. Chicago White Sox [PERMALINK]

Credentials: The White Sox roared out of the gate and then nearly pulled a swoon for the ages from Aug. 2 to Sept. 22, going 22-26 and losing 13 and a half games off their 15-game lead over the Cleveland Indians. But they come into the playoffs having appeared to right the ship, winning eight of their last 10 to close out the Indians and win the Central. Then again, they looked like they’d righted the ship when they won seven in a row in early September. Then they went 4-10.

The White Sox can match the Red Sox’s famous 86-year run of incompetence, which ended last year, and do it two better. They haven’t won the World Series since 1917, and they haven’t even played in it since 1959, their only appearance since throwing the Series to the Cincinnati Reds in 1919. The Pale Hose lack only the literary and marketing artistry that made Boston’s losing somehow noble.

The Red Sox defended their first World Series title in 86 years by leading the East for most of the year before the Yankees got hot in September and passed them. The teams ended up tied for first with 95 wins, but the Yanks got the division title based on head-to-head records. One-game playoffs are only played for division titles when the loser won’t get the wild card, and the Sox claimed that with a win on the season’s last day.

The Red Sox will win ’cause: They score big shovelfuls of runs. They were the only team in the majors to score 900 this year, and they scored 169 more — over a run a game more — than the White Sox. They’re also playoff-seasoned, for what that’s worth, having played in the last two American League Championship Series against the Yankees. The White Sox haven’t been here since 2000, with a very different team. If the White Sox of August and the middle of September show up, this’ll be a wipeout.

The White Sox will win ’cause: They pitch better. Their starting pitchers are better than Boston’s, probably better than everybody’s except Houston’s, and the Red Sox lack the two dominant arms they had last year: Pedro Martinez, who went to the New York Mets, and Curt Schilling, who has battled injury all season, though he pitched well in the playoff clincher Sunday. The White Sox would benefit from having a couple of power pitchers to challenge Boston’s patient sluggers, but there’s certainly enough arm talent for them to take the series.

Unlikely heroes: Carl Everett, Chicago. Curt Schilling, Boston.

Random boldface factoid: According to Baseball-Reference.com, the only two men who had played for all four teams in this year’s American League playoffs as of the end of 2004 were pitcher Ken Brett and catcher Jerry Moses, who both came up with Boston and were teammates from 1967 to 1970. No one has played for all four N.L. teams.

Prediction: Red Sox in five, in the most entertaining series of the first round

- – - – - – - – - – - -

New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Angels [PERMALINK]

Credentials: The Yankees finished 16-5 to take the East for the 1,376th straight time. Their loss to the Red Sox Sunday was meaningless except that it gave the Angels, who won that day, home-field advantage in this series. The Yanks whined in unseemly fashion that Buck Showalter, the manager of the Angels’ opponent Sunday, the Texas Rangers, didn’t play his best players. This complaint would have gone over better if New York hadn’t skipped Mike Mussina’s turn so he could pitch Game 1 Tuesday, instead sending Jaret “5.97 ERA” Wright.

The Angels looked like they’d waltz to the Western Division title once the Rangers faded in midsummer, but they got a challenge from the resurgent Oakland A’s in the second half. But the A’s faded too and the Angels closed the season going 14-2 to win by seven games.

The Yankees will win ’cause: They’re the Yankees. They score almost as many runs as the Red Sox. They’re almost unbeatable if they can get the ball to Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera with a lead, and in the playoffs that often only means getting to the seventh inning. A couple of the questions around their starting pitching — Does Randy Johnson have any more big games in him? Can Mike Mussina reverse his recent slide? Can Shawn Chacon be counted on? Aaron Small? Really? — are answered yes.

The Angels will win ’cause: With Bartolo Colon, Jarrod Washburn, John Lackey and Paul Byrd, they have better, more reliable starting pitching, and their bullpen is solid too. Francisco “K-Rod, Not to Be Confused With the Yankees’ Felix ‘F-Rod’” Rodriguez and Scot Shields are in the same class as Rivera and Gordon at the back.

And while the Angels have some depth in their pen, the Yankees are in trouble if they have to start bringing in middle relievers. The Angels are a pretty free swinging bunch, so they won’t get starters out by elevating pitch counts. But they can hit.

Unlikely heroes: Any starting pitcher, New York. Chone Figgins, Los Angeles.

Random boldface factoid: Did you know? Boldface was invented by Benjamin Franklin! He inadvertently hit the F1 key on his computer while typesetting an edition of Poor Richard’s Almanac. He liked the resulting boldface type and the rest is history. Of course, the F keys were blank in those primitive times, but were later designated F1, F2 and so on in Franklin’s honor.

Prediction: Angels in five

LCS predictions: Astros over Cardinals, Angels over Red Sox

World Series prediction: Astros over Angels

Previous column: A-Rod vs. Ortiz, postseason awards

- – - – - – - – - – - -

Bookmark http://www.salon.com/sports to get the new Kaufman column every day.

Discuss this column and the sports news of the day in Table Talk.

Send an e-mail to King Kaufman.

To receive the Sports Daily Newsletter, send an e-mail to kingnewsletter@salon.com.

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Santorum mangles the Founding Fathers

It's the GOP insurgent, not Obama, who is waging a war against religion.

By Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg and Nancy Isenberg

James Madison and Rick Santorum (Credit: Wikipedia/Reuters/Rick Wilking)

Topics:2012 Elections, Rick Santorum, Religion

Each time erstwhile presidential candidate Rick Santorum rears his righteous head, it is to exploit a social issue that is of no import in a national election. But he knows that the way to keep the cameras pointed at him one more day is to manufacture a new bit of hysteria.

Last Thursday, Joan Walsh reported on Santorum as he clamored to punish non-Catholics by limiting their access to contraceptives if their workplace was in the hands of the Catholic Church. She rightly pointed out that he “absolutely mangles” what the founders said about religion. Raising the specter of the atheistic French Revolution and its notorious use of the guillotine, the former Pennsylvania senator planted a seed in the minds of his hearers: A left-driven tyranny was where the anti-Christian Obama administration would be heading next.

The fear-monger tosses out familial metaphors with devilish glee. At once subverting patriarchy within the home and turning the federal government into Big Brother, the sitting president stands in moral opposition to all that is good. And only the moral policeman Rick can stop him.

“They are taking faith and crushing it,” Santorum howls at the political left. “When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights then what’s left is the French Revolution…. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.”

This is a combination of really bad history and undisciplined demagoguery. What we’d like to focus on is not the fractured logic of the demagogue so much as the perversion of history by the two-term senator. We consider it quite sad that a presidential candidate in 2012 should be resurrecting the same dirty campaign tactic that accompanied the charge that Thomas Jefferson, for five years U.S. minister to France, would, if elected president, shut down churches and burn bibles.

Start with the fact that in his superficial evocation of the 1790s, Santorum was referring not to the French so much as he was unconsciously reviving the propaganda used by New England Federalists against the “atheist” Thomas Jefferson, who championed freedom of conscience and refused to wear his religion on his sleeve. From 1793 on, conservative Yankees predicted that the social chaos of Paris would wash ashore in America. Indeed, conservative academics of our own time view the French Revolution as the first step toward the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union–all of which fits neatly with the crack-brained Tea Party narrative in which President Obama is a sworn socialist and enemy of capitalism.

Mitt Romney is not beyond indulging in the same polemical game, associating Obama with European social programs. Yet Santorum does what the Mormon cannot, by playing the “Catholic card” in his effort to “other” the president. It is an especially bizarre move in historical relief, because the Federalist critics who most loudly warned of the French-tainted Jefferson were New England Calvinists who feared Catholics as much as they feared French anarchy.

Federalists termed the French Revolution a “contagion,” a violent, sickening, uncivilizing process. If Santorum sees the metaphorical blade of the guillotine hanging over the heads of the Catholic bishops, it is well worth noting that eighteenth-century conservatives were so carried away by their own outlandish predictions that their panicky congressional majority passed a series of repressive laws, the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which first targeted French émigrés and then U.S. citizens who needed to be silenced. The Sedition Act authorized the imprisonment of journalists and politicians who criticized the president. The main purpose of the legislation was, as James Madison observed, to shut down free and open political debate–to derail democracy. Cleverly drafted, the Sedition Act allowed the government to punish critics of the president, but not the vice president. Why the omission? Because in 1798, John Adams’s vice president was the unAmerican Thomas Jefferson.

It certainly seems that Rick Santorum reads the First Amendment just as the Federalist Congress of 1798 did. As we all know, though, the First Amendment was intended to uphold religious freedom, protect speech, and ensure liberty of conscience. Madison, who conceived the First Amendment, defended the last of these three principles as a deeply private, individual right shielding citizens from the coercive, invasive force of a church or state government.

It is Santorum, not President Obama, who is waging a war against religion. It is the fear-mongers who endanger religious freedom. Why should the Catholic Church impose its doctrines on employees who are not Catholic? Why should any who are not Catholic be deprived of access to a health insurance benefit solely because they are employed by a Catholic hospital or university? Why should the Church be permitted to impose its doctrines on an individual who not a member? The First Amendment does not grant any church the power to deprive individuals of rights.

Santorum is waging a war not only on religion but on all Americans who do not share his faith. The Catholic Church has every right to impart its doctrines; its members can accept or reject them. The majority of Catholic men and women have rejected the particular doctrine prohibiting the use of contraception. Employees possess the right to insurance and the right to adhere to their own religious beliefs.

As Madison argued in a 1788 letter to Jefferson, religious fanaticism was as serious a danger to religious liberty as excessive state authority. In his words, “rights of conscience” were undermined by “overbearing majorities” who were intent on advancing the interests of a particular “religious establishment.” In plain and simple terms, the founders meant to protect individuals against excessive encroachments by church as well as state.

We might all wish to heed Madison’s further warning: “It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the Government has too much or too little power.” Religious liberty required the protection of state authority, in creating a barrier around the individual and guarding against intrusions from religious institutions.

The fact remains that President Obama is no more a French Revolutionary Jacobin than Jefferson or Madison. It appears, in fact, that the president has a very clear understanding of religious liberty, appreciating the boundaries between church and state just as Madison intended. His promptly conceived compromise solution, respecting religion without restricting rights, fits the balanced, reasonable approach our founders prescribed when they fought, state by state, to eliminate state funding and sanctioning (i.e., disestablishment) of privileged sects.

If the last three years tell us anything, 2012 will not usher in a new Age of Reason. Fanaticism will continue to seize the news cycle. Rick Santorum has learned (perhaps from Donald Trump and birther mania) that the best way to grab the headlines is to ramp up the epithets, bark the loudest, and fantasize a history that never was.

: Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are Professors of History at Louisiana State University and coauthors of "Madison and Jefferson." (Random House, 2010). More Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg
: More Nancy Isenberg

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Chris Christie’s gay marriage headache

What’s good for his 2016 dreams could complicate his ability to survive 2013

By Steve Kornacki

Chris Christie (Credit: AP/Mel Evans)

Topics:War Room

There are two elections on the horizon that Chris Christie has a particular interest in. The first is in New Jersey next year, when he’ll seek a second term as governor. The second is in 2016, when he’ll make a logical presidential candidate — if he wins reelection in ’13 and if the Republican nomination is open. (For now at least, let’s leave aside the idea that Christie might serve as his party’s vice presidential candidate this year.)

This makes the debate over gay marriage in the Garden State, where the Democratic-controlled Senate approved marriage equality legislation yesterday, a problem for him.

On the one hand, support for gay marriage among New Jersey voters is solid — 52 percent favored it and 42 percent opposed it in one recent poll, while another pegged the margin at 48-37. Among independents, support is even higher. And the trajectory seems clear: Just five years ago, those overall numbers were reversed when the topic was polled. Given how rare Republican victories in New Jersey are (Christie’s 2009 win marked just the fifth statewide triumph for the GOP in 37 years, and only the second that was won by more than a point), Christie has to be very careful as he approaches his reelection race. He doesn’t have much margin for error when it comes to alienating swing voters — one of the reasons he was so colorful and adamant in denying interest in the presidential race last year — and swing voters in New Jersey are generally fine with gay marriage.

But Republican voters nationally are not, and it will be a long time before they are (if they ever are). So if he wants to preserve his viability for ’16, Christie can not be known as the New Jersey governor who enacted same-sex marriage. But he also can’t position himself as a hardline, stop-at-nothing-to-derail-it opponent of it; to do so would reek of the cultural conservatism that has made most national Republicans unmarketable in New Jersey and endanger Christie’s reelection prospects. And if he gets the boot in ’13, it could sink whatever ’16 ambitions he has.

Christie’s workaround has been to oppose gay marriage while calling for a public referendum. This has elicited howls from gay marriage supporters, who argue that minority group rights should never be put to a vote, but it has aligned him with a clear majority of voters, who say they like the referendum idea. Of course, a referendum campaign would be long, messy, and divisive. And anyway, Democrats in the legislature have the votes to make sure one never takes place.

But yesterday’s state Senate vote offered another potential way out for Christie: a legislative override. 24 of the chamber’s 40 members — including two Republicans — voted for gay marriage, a surprise result and a significant increase from the last such vote in 2009. It would only take three more Republican votes to reach the number needed to override Christie’s veto. And in the Assembly, where the bill will now head, Democrats enjoy a 47-33 majority, with 54 votes needed to override a veto.

The Republican Party in New Jersey has its very conservative pockets, but the cultural moderation of Clifford Case, Tom Kean and Christie Whitman is still prevalent too. There probably are a handful of GOP senators and a scattering of Assembly members who are personally OK with gay marriage and who could survive politically if they voted for it. This presents a Machiavellian possibility for Christie: Wink at them, continue voicing his opposition, then throw up his hands as the legislature overrides him and takes the issue off the table. As Josh Benson of Capital New York theorizes:

That would be a slap in Christie’s face, for sure. But it’s not clear that it would hurt. After all, if Christie vetoes same-sex-marriage legislation and gets overridden, he’ll be able to tell conservatives one day, when he’s asking for their support, that at least he tried to keep the liberals in check.

The legislature has until the end of its current term to override Christie — meaning nearly two years. So don’t expect an override anytime soon. But if popular support keeps growing and Christie finds himself staring at a difficult reelection race in ’13, it might start to make sense.

: Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Joan Walsh on NPR’s On Point

The Salon writer debates author Charles Murray about the supposed decline of the white working class

By Carmen Garcia

Charles Murray

Topics:2012 Elections

On NPR’s On Point this morning, Joan Walsh debated “libertarian lightning-rod” Charles Murray about his argument that values, income, and “religiosity” have irrevocably split America between elites and “everybody else.” Challenging Murray’s belief that “the sorting and separation of the classes is inevitable,” Salon’s editor-at-large pushes her interlocutor to swap his outdated thinking for a far more realistic, 21st-century take, one that takes into account the vastly more complicated forces behind class division.

Listen here.

: More Carmen Garcia

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Do we still need Black History Month?

Three great documentaries air, including "More Than A Month," where one filmmaker explores his conflicted feelings

By Roger Catlin

A still from "More Than a Month"

Topics:Television, TV, Documentaries

Black History Month is an idea that filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman finds passé. In his documentary “More Than a Month,” which premieres Thursday on PBS’ “Independent Lens,” he walks around with a signboard that says END BLACK HISTORY MONTH and receives plenty of dirty looks. But he also gets more support than he suspected — after he explains that history should be part of the American story, told even during months with more than 28 or 29 days.

As he goes about his somewhat whimsical quest, some caution him that without that annual anchor, there’d be even less black history taught than before. He takes his campaign on the road; peers into the home of the month’s originator, Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C.; meets with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; and goes to Virginia to see what black history means to big fans of the Confederacy.

Eventually he gets more serious about his task, realizing that while history may convey how we were, the way we tell history conveys how we are. And he’s had one direct effect: His mother, an activist, moves the date for a black history performance she had been planning out of February to help demonstrate that it is part of the fabric of U.S. history all year round.

One day, even television networks may spread their black-heritage documentaries beyond the confines of February as well. Unfortunately, two remarkable documentaries air at the same time Tuesday in many markets.

After demonstrating that he’s a sensitive observer of life in black America with “Hoop Dreams,” Steve James is back with “The Interrupters” – a more ambitious film that follows a fearless group of activists and amateur psychologists determined to end urban violence. It makes its national TV debut this evening on Frontline (check local listings).

That James and author Alex Kotlowitz (“There Are No Children Here”) decided to focus on Chicago at the precise time its youth-killing rates and lurid viral videos made it a national news story put them in the center of the cyclone. Their alarming footage, from the center of exploding violence and retribution, put the superficial approach of the national news media and government officials — who did little more than hold press conferences — to shame.

Even more remarkable are the counselors and community-minded people, many of whom learned their lessons in the streets, who put their lives on the line to defuse the mayhem out of a regard for love and doing what’s right.

Among them, Ameena Matthews deserves to be some kind of national heroine for her street sense, humor, decency, insight and bravery, which seem to change everyone she approaches. No matter how explosive the situation, she can enter, speak sensibly and have people listen.

James and Kotlowitz do treat their subjects seriously, listen to what they have to say and show how the activists are getting things done. For the inches of progress made before our eyes, it’s a hopeful film.

“The Loving Story,” on HBO, may seem like it is tied to Valentine’s Day. But it’s only providence that the couple at the center of the story is also named Loving.

But loving is the key. Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were both members of a small community in Virginia where whites and blacks freely worked and socialized. They met and fell in love, and like anyone else might do, got married.

But there were laws in Virginia, as there were in more than a dozen other states, outlawing any such mixing of races through marriage, using a word that is as ugly as the prejudice, miscegenation.

Somebody called the cops and the happily married duo were hit with a felony charge in 1958 — and a year in jail – which would be suspended if they’d just leave the state. Any visits back to see family or friends would have to be done individually, lest they risk arrest. They decided to fight the law, not only for their own sake, but as Mrs. Loving says in the sweetest possible way, for other people as well — because “it isn’t right.”

“The Loving Story” is in some ways the exciting case of the two young American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who agreed to take the case on and brought it to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that’s only because lawyers like to talk, especially looking back at what they can now see was the biggest case of their lives. Although there is a surprising amount of footage of the Lovings in the film, they never do say very much. They just want the right thing done. And in the end, it is.

The two are not around to tell their story, though one of their daughters is. He died in a car accident in 1975; she in 2008 at 68, surrounded by family and friends. The last anti-miscegenation law wasn’t repealed until 2000 in Alabama. Theirs is a love story that hasn’t been fully told previously — and may not have had a showcase had it not been for Black History Month.

: More Roger Catlin

- 5Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Trench warfare rages over Keystone pipeline

The GOP tries every which way to undo the Greens' modest victory

By Alyssa Battistoni

Protestors outside the White House demand a stop to the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

Topics:Keystone XL pipeline, Editor's Picks, Environment, U.S. Congress

When the Obama administration announced last month that the Keystone pipeline project would be delayed pending a more thorough environmental review of its impacts, Keystone’s opponents celebrated, but warned that the fight was far from over. Sure enough, pipeline politics remain front-and-center as those in favor of the pipeline seek to circumvent the longer review process while its opponents struggle to fend off attacks on their tenuous victory. The past few weeks have seen a burst of legislative maneuvering as Republicans seek a way to rubber-stamp the pipeline without the president’s approval.

The maneuvering is intense because the struggle over the 1,600-mile proposed pipeline has become a proxy battle in a larger war over climate change, corporate influence and the legacy of the Obama administration. Both sides agree that the fate of Keystone XL will influence more than just whether oil is transported from the tar sands of central Canada to the United States. It will signal whether the U.S. is moving away from the carbon-fueled economy or embracing it anew.

The Republicans are attacking from several directions. A House bill introduced by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., in December would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a permit within 30 days of receiving an application, essentially removing the Interior Department and Army Corps of Engineers from the oversight process, exempting the pipeline from several state and federal environmental regulations, and eliminating any discretionary review process.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill on Feb. 7, while killing Democratic amendments to prevent Keystone oil from being exported after processing, to block TransCanada from using eminent domain to seize private land, and to certify TransCanada’s claims that most of the steel used in building the pipeline would be manufactured in the United States. Republican leaders have also indicated that they’re considering inserting the bill’s language into other legislation in a replay of December’s payroll-tax-bill shenanigans.

Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., would allow Congress to approve the pipeline without presidential review by invoking Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate international commerce; Sens. David Vitter, R-La., Dick Lugar, R-Ind., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., co-sponsored a companion bill in the Senate. And today, Republican leaders added a provision to the same effect to a transportation funding bill that may go up for a vote as soon as Tuesday. In response, anti-Keystone activists are seeking to imitate the success of last month’s anti-SOPA online activism, aiming to inundate senators with a stated goal of half a million emails within 24 hours to demonstrate that opposition to the pipeline remains strong.

The Keystone provision is unlikely to pass the Senate, let alone get a signature from President Obama. But if the past few weeks are any indication, we haven’t seen the last of the pro-pipeline legislation by a long shot. Mitch McConnell gave the game away in a statement to the conservative publication Human Events, saying, “The only way we’re going to get the Keystone pipeline started is to defeat Barack Obama.”

The party’s aim is to make the pipeline’s rejection a symbol of Obama’s alleged failure to stimulate the economy, and more generally, to paint a portrait of the president as a weak leader more concerned with appeasing “special interest groups” than with taking decisive action. Said Mack at a recent press conference, “The president has decided he’s not going to lead on this issue … so we need to get him out of the way,” while Lugar declared, “The president has failed to lead.”

But pipeline protesters counter that Obama’s decision on Keystone represented a courageous refusal to give in to pressure from fossil fuel lobbyists: MoveOn.org called it a “bold stand against the power of the oil industry,” while Bill McKibben said he “did the brave thing” in standing up to the American Petroleum Institute. While the issue is frequently portrayed as one that could divide key factions of Obama’s base, with labor unions in favor of the pipeline and environmentalists against, several major unions have come out in support of the administration’s decision to delay the pipeline, calling efforts to speed up the review the “cynical move” of a “do-nothing Republican Congress” and stating, “President Obama has acted wisely.”

A report released by the State Department investigator general last week also raised concerns about several aspects of the original environmental review. The report found that the original review failed to consider conflicts of interest: One of TransCanada’s lobbyists, Paul Elliott, is a former aide to Secretary of State Clinton, and the third-party contractor selected to conduct the review had prior financial relationships with TransCanada.

Moreover, the State Department neglected to address several regulations and had insufficient expertise to adequately consider issues like the pipeline’s potential impact on endangered species. The findings bolster environmental groups’ claims that the pipeline serves the interests of the oil industry, which is among the Republican Party’s top donors, and TransCanada, whose spending on lobbying has tripled in the past year to $1.73 million, $1.33 million of which went to Elliott for pipeline-related expenditures.

And it’s not just American politics that have been shaken up by the controversy over Keystone. After the delay was announced, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he would begin looking into alternative markets for the country’s natural resources, and during a recent visit to Beijing, “pledged closer trade ties with China.” That, in turn, has sparked a wave of concern about the specter of “foreign oil” back in the U.S., although most of the oil transported by the pipeline would ultimately be exported rather than used to supply the country’s energy needs. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., argues that Keystone would make the U.S. into “a middleman between Alberta and Asia” while doing nothing to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign oil.

Going forward, the coalition of activists opposed to the pipeline plans to deliver the signatures they’ve gathered over the past 24 hours to senators today, as Congress starts to consider the transportation bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that a Keystone rider will kill that bill—and in any case, few Democrats support the House version, which Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said ”takes us back to the dark ages.” Even if this attempt to fast-track the pipeline fails, though, there are plenty of other pro-Keystone bills in the works, and the GOP may try to insert a similar provision into the next payroll tax cut extension.

Either way, expect to hear more about Keystone over the next few months, as it’s clear that both sides want to keep the issue in the news. The ultimate outcome will likely depend on whether the public sees Keystone as a jobs issue or an environmental one, and indeed, some polls suggest that Americans are more receptive to environmental arguments than Republicans seem to think. In fact, Democratic leaders—some of whom support Keystone, and most of whom have tried to hedge their bets—may be a tougher sell.