Fox’s Your World Show used the awful violence in Iraq as a pretext for a Keystone XL Pipeline infomercial. The discussion began with a Fox News Alert in which host Neil Cavuto announced the latest alarming developments in Iraq and their effects on the economy. “What does this mean and where does this go?” he asked. Fox News translation: “How can we use this to promote our political agenda?”
Your World’s two guests for the segment were John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, and conservative pundit Amber Barno, identified merely as a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot.
After Barno highlighted the importance of “oil independence” to our national security, Cavuto turned to his other guest to drive the Fox News talking point home. He said, “And yet John Hofmeister we have that Keystone pipeline just sitting there.”
Hofmeister took the hint. As a Fox New bonus, Hofmeister bashed the Obama administration while he was at it. He said, “I was at a meeting yesterday in New York at Goldman Sachs where the Foreign Minister of Canada put it right to the United States government, the federal government, that this is an embarrassment, this is a decision that should’ve been made years ago. This is one more pipeline on top of 70 existing pipelines essential to increase the amount of oil that crosses our border. …It is unconscionable for this administration to continue to hold up this project when we know we have got to pursue national and regional energy security.”
Barno joined in. She accused the Obama administration of “hiding behind” environmental issues. Although she had no apparent credentials in energy, environment, business or economics, that did not stop her from playing a Keystone XL pipeline expert on TV.
She said, “The Keystone Pipeline, if it’s built, it will significantly reduce our footprint in the Middle East and the conflicts that we have to get involved in. It will create jobs, it will boost our economy, and there are very little risks associated with it. So it’s a win-win situation for the U.S. It increases our national security, it gets rid of some of those threats, and it reduces putting our men and women in uniform in harms way as we’ve seen over the past decade. And it’s better all the way around.”
Watch this “fair and balanced” discussion from the June 12th Your World below - with one guest advocating for the pipeline and attacking the Obama administration from a business perspective and the other from a national security perspective.
