Tonight's Democratic forum on MSNBC was great. Rachel Maddow asked grownup, important questions and all three candidates gave grownup, substantive answers.
With one notable exception. When Rachel Maddow asked O'Malley about Keystone, she ticked off the Democrats who came to oppose it, including Hillary Clinton. O'Malley shot back that she "finally came around last week."
A factcheck is in order here. In January, 2012, Hillary Clinton's State Department denied Keystone's application.
Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest. The President concurred with the Department’s recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest.
Now, part of that denial concerned the accelerated timeline the Department of State was being asked to comply with for approval. But it was also part of the larger dance and response with regard to Keystone and the politics of the pipeline, a project which remains popular with much of the electorate.
It is patently false to say Clinton "just came around," when clearly she had the option to green-light the project and declined to do so.
