Addison Eagle

Washington, D.C. — Remember 1960s “Laugh In” T.V. comic Flip Wilson? He used to say the “Devil made me do it” as an excuse for some misdeed. Well, now we learn that President Barack Obama was forced to cancel the permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline because the Republicans made him do it. That's the explanation coming out of the White House this week–Republicans played politics with the issue, and the president had no other choice, said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

“In terms of Keystone, as you all know, the history here is pretty clear,” Carney told reporters Tuesday at his regular press briefing.

"And the fact is because Republicans decided to play political with Keystone, their action essentially forced the administration to deny the permit process because they insisted on a time frame in which it was impossible to completely approve the pipeline," Carney said.

Carney's assertion was challenged by ABC News' Jake Tapper, who questioned how Obama could claim to have an all-of-the-above approach to energy production if he turned down the pipeline permit. “And you blame the Republicans for making it political?” Tapper asked.

Carney's response: ‘But the president didn't turn down the Keystone pipeline. There was a process in place, with long precedent, run out of the State Department because of the issue of the pipeline crossing an international boundary, that required an amount of time for proper, for review, after an alternate route was deemed necessary through Nebraska at the request of the Republican governor of Nebraska and other stakeholders in Nebraska and the region that needed to play out, to be done appropriately. You can't review and approve a pipeline, the route for which doesn't even exist.’

The pipeline has been reviewed and delayed by the Obama administration for three years to make sure it met environmental safety standards and was in the country's national interest. When the president tried to delay his final decision on the project for another year, and after his re-election campaign, Republicans forced the issue passing a law requiring that he make a decision before the end of February.

Obama, who has been under increasing pressure by the environmental community to stop the project, made his decision in January, and said no. It is not in the country'’s best interest, it turns out, to construct a 1,700-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas to bring oil to the U.S. and create 20,000 jobs.

And besides, it's the Republicans' fault Obama had to say no.

(Audrey Hudson)