Responding to New York senator Chuck Schumer’s proposal to use the amendment process to hold up the Keystone XL pipeline — which, given the Republican Congress shortly to be sworn in, will finally have the support of both chambers of the federal legislature — Charles Krauthammer pointed to the silver lining: that Schumer’s threat signals a new way of doing things in the Senate. Or, rather, a return to the old ways.


“What’s really important here is that Republicans are going to have a chance to show how — retroactively — for the last six years, everything has stopped in the Senate. Democrats stopped it, [former majority leader] Harry Reid stopped it. And they effectively acted as a shield to make Obama look as if he wasn’t the one stopping stuff.”

“Schumer and the others could prevent a few of the bills from landing on the president’s desk, with these ridiculous amendments — on Keystone, for example,” Krauthammer conceded. “But I think it will expose them. The days of hiding under Harry Reid’s desk are over.”