After his decision to deny a permit to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built, President Obama is under fire  from newspaper editorials across the country, a number of Democrats in Congress, and even unions.

The Wall Street Journal editors write, “The central conflict of the Obama Presidency has been between the jobs and growth crisis he inherited and the President’s hell-for-leather pursuit of his larger social-policy ambitions. The tragedy is that the economic recovery has been so lackluster because the second impulse keeps winning. Yesterday came proof positive with the White House’s repudiation of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada’s $7 billion shovel-ready project that would support tens of thousands of jobs if only it could get the requisite U.S. permits. Those jobs, apparently, can wait.”

The president’s hometown Chicago Tribune writes, “The problem is, Keystone should be approved. This is a good project. It will give us energy and give us jobs. You want stimulus? This is a $7 billion deal to be done with private-sector funding. . . . Obama made a decision that will cost the U.S. good jobs. He seems to think those jobs will still be there when he gets around to making a decision on the pipeline. But they may well be gone for good.”

And USA Today editorializes, “What’s really going on here, of course, is the most craven sort of election-year politics. The Obama administration seemed to be on its way to approving Keystone when environmental groups made the pipeline a key test of their support for the president, who suddenly decided the administration couldn’t possibly make a decision until sometime after the election. . . . The biggest loser in this game of political football is the national interest.”

Meanwhile, a number of Democrats weren’t much happier. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said, “President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a major setback for the American economy, American workers and America’s energy independence.” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said, “I am disappointed in the president’s decision.” Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) called the decision “disappointing and frustrating” and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) tweeted, “I strongly disagree with President Obama’s decision to postpone the Keystone pipeline project, which will sustain and create jobs.” And even Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said, “There is absolutely no reason we cannot start putting Montanans to work on the Keystone XL pipeline right away.”

Unions expressed their displeasure with President Obama as well. In a press release, the Laborers’ International Union of North America declared, “The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed… Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.” And the AFl-CIO’s Mark Ayers counted himself “disappointed by an Administration unwilling to take its own words to heart and approve this vital project.”

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