‘Daily Show’ rips Landrieu for Keystone ‘ploy’

Comedian Jon Stewart blasted Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) On Thursday’s “The Daily Show,” saying her push to pass a bill authorizing the Keystone XL oil pipeline was a “transparent ploy” to save her job.
 
“The Keystone pipeline has long been an environmental bugaboo,” Stewart said. “It could never pass the Democratically held Senate, unless they were willing to sell out a poor constituency and vote for this Keystone pipeline bill just to save one Senate seat that doesn’t even change the balance of power.”
 
Landrieu trails Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) badly in polls of the Senate runoff election in Louisiana.
 
{mosads}After Democrats were trounced on Nov. 4, Landrieu made a furious pitch to pass the Keystone bill, which could have put space between herself and the unpopular President Obama, and reminded voters of her clout on a powerful Senate committee. The bill fell one vote short of passing in the Senate.
 
Some liberal pundits questioned how Landrieu’s plan of passing a bill that’s unpopular with Democrats would help her turn out more liberal voters for the Dec. 6 election.
 
“So the party that lost the midterm elections because it didn’t stand for anything has decided, ‘Oh! I got an idea. What if we stood for less?’ ” Stewart said.
 
Republicans are likely to pass the bill in January, when they’ll have control of both chambers in Congress.
 
“And when it does [pass], somewhere, ex-Sen. Mary Landrieu will be thankful that, even though the pipeline didn’t save her job, she can now apply for one of its 35 to millions of new ones,” Stewart said.