While Yale ’64’s Gus Speth could take some solace in President Obama’s decision to postpone a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that threatens severe damage to the environment, Republicans in Congress have been trying to force the project through by by attaching it to a proposed extension of the payroll tax cut.  Not incidentally, the New York Times‘ Ross Douthat (in his column for December 4, 2011) has made an effort to brush contemporary protests against the project with the tar of ’60s radicalism. Referring to the opposition as “the decadent left,” Douthat describes opponents like Speth as part of “a small group of activists and donors, keeping the pipeline out of their national backyard…even if American workers pay the price.” Conservatives, according to a Times editorial  December 13th have vastly overestimated the number of jobs the project would generate and underestimate the damage it would do to the environment.