New Republican pipeline ad spoofs MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow

Republicans are poking fun at liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in their bid to gain political traction for the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has a new Web ad riffing on MSNBC spots that feature Maddow in front of the Hoover Dam calling for the nation to think big on infrastructure.

{mosads}In the NRCC’s version, a woman dressed like Maddow (sweatshirt and all) is placed before the dam and then a fictional Keystone pipeline segment.

“This is an energy infrastructure project. It’s got national significance,” she says in front of the dam.

The ad then cuts to the pipeline, where the fake Maddow takes aim at President Obama’s failure thus far to approve the pipeline that would transport Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

“We’ve got a project like this waiting for the President’s go ahead supported by Republicans and Democrats, labor unions. It would provide energy security and up to 130,000 jobs,” she says.
 “We’ve got to figure out why the President thinks we’re not a county that can think this big.”

Citing the work of popular figures on the left to push for Keystone’s approval is becoming a trend for Republicans.

Last week, House Republicans used the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” (“I must have been mad, I never knew what I had, until I threw it all away”) to argue that the United States risks losing access to Canadian resources if Obama doesn’t back Keystone XL.

Environmentalists call the jobs figures that Republicans and industry groups are tossing around vastly inflated.

Green groups are urging Obama to reject TransCanada Corp.’s proposed pipeline due to greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta’s oil sands projects and other concerns.

The Obama administration, under the payroll tax cut law enacted in December, faces a Feb. 21 deadline to make a decision about the pipeline.