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Right away, the implications rippled across the political spectrum, stirred up the presidential campaign and even hardened feelings with Canada, a trusted U.S. ally and neighbor. For a U.S. electorate eager for work, the pipeline has become the very symbol of job creation for Republicans, but Obama says the environment and public safety must still be weighed too.

The plan by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. would carry tar sands oil from western Canada across a 1,700-mile pipeline across six U.S. states to Texas refineries.

Obama was already on record as saying no, for now, until his government could review an alternative route that avoided environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska – a route that still has not been proposed, as the White House emphasizes. But Obama had to take a stand again by Feb. 21 at the latest as part of an unrelated tax deal he cut with Republicans.

This time, the project would go forward unless Obama himself declared it was not in the national interest. The president did just that, reviving intense reaction.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a written statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision.”

Republicans responded unsparingly.

“President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese. There’s really just no other way to put it. The president is selling out American jobs for politics,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. Insisting that the pipeline would help the economy, he declared: “This is not the end of the fight,” signaling that Republicans might try again to force a decision.

The State Department said the decision was made “without prejudice,” meaning TransCanada can submit a new application once a new route is established. Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer, said the company plans to do exactly that. If approved, the pipeline could begin operation as soon as 2014, Girling said.

It did not take long for the Republicans seeking Obama’s job to slam him.

Newt Gingrich, campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination in South Carolina, called Obama’s decision “stunningly stupid,” adding: “What Obama has done is kill jobs, weaken American security and drive Canada into the arms of China out of just sheer stupidity.”

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said the decision was “as shocking as it is revealing. It shows a president who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy.”

Project supporters say U.S. rejection of the pipeline would not stop it from being built. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada is serious about building a pipeline to its West Coast, where oil could be shipped to China and other Asian markets.

Harper on Wednesday told Obama he was profoundly disappointed that Obama turned down the pipeline, Harper’s office said.

Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s president for energy and oil pipelines, said last week the company soon will have a new route through Nebraska “that everyone agrees on.”

The proposed $7 billion pipeline would run through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma en route to Texas.

The pipeline is a dicey proposition for Obama, who enjoyed strong support from both organized labor and environmentalists in his winning 2008 campaign for the White House.

Environmental advocates have made it clear that approval of the pipeline would dampen their enthusiasm for Obama in the upcoming November election. Some liberal donors even threatened to cut off funds to Obama’s re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.

But by rejecting the pipeline, Obama risks losing support from organized labor, a key part of the Democratic base, for thwarting thousands of jobs.

“The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero,” said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

O’Sullivan called the decision “politics at its worst” and said, “Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

Yet some unions that back Obama oppose the pipeline, included United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union and Communications Workers of America.

TransCanada says the pipeline could create as many as 20,000 jobs, a figure opponents say is inflated. A State Department report last summer said the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction.

Obama appeared to have skirted what some dubbed the “Keystone conundrum” in November when the State Department announced it was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after this year’s election. Officials said they needed extra time to study routes that avoid an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska that supplies water to eight states.

The affected area stretches just 65 miles through the Sandhills region of northern Nebraska, but the concerns were serious enough that the state’s governor and senators opposed the project until the pipeline was moved. The new route, which has not been chosen, would have to be approved by Nebraska environmental officials and the State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border.

Obama said his decision does not “change my administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.”

To underscore the point, Obama signaled that he would not oppose development of an oil pipeline from Oklahoma to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. TransCanada already operates a pipeline from Canada to Cushing, Okla.

Refineries in Houston and along the Texas Gulf Coast can handle heavy crude such as that extracted from Canadian tar sands – the type of oil that would flow through the Keystone XL pipeline.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he doesn’t believe the Keystone XL is a dead project. He said the Obama administration did not have enough time to review the project, given the Republican-imposed timeline.

“I don’t believe this is the end of the story,” Conrad told The Associated Press. “My personal view is that it should be constructed. It’s clear Canada is going to develop this resource, and I believe it is better for our country to have it go here rather than Asian markets.”

Bill McKibben, an environmental activist who led opposition to the pipeline, praised Obama’s decision to stand up to what he called a “naked political threat from Big Oil.” Jack Gerard, the oil industry’s top lobbyist, had said last week that Obama faced “huge political consequences” if he rejected the pipeline.

“It’s not only the right thing, it’s a very brave thing to do,” McKibben said. “That’s the Barack Obama I think people thought they were electing back in 2008.”

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“He is `The One,’” said Oprah Winfrey, his biggest and most influential celebrity champion.

“The best candidate I’ve ever seen,” said George Clooney.

Halle Berry said she’d “collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.” Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am chimed in with the famous “Yes We Can” video.

But you can’t be the Next Big Thing twice and as a new election year dawns, there’s clearly a different mood in heavily Democratic Hollywood.

That means less gushing, not to mention snippets of criticism, most prominently from actor Matt Damon, who campaigned for Obama last time but now makes no secret of his disillusionment.

“I think he misinterpreted his mandate,” Damon said earlier this year. He recently told Elle magazine the country would have been better off with a one-term president with guts, although he used a saltier word.

The adulation of the 2008 election may be significantly muted among Hollywood liberals, as with liberals elsewhere, but Obama’s supporters say that’s only natural, given the circumstances. Fundraisers there say that events have been selling out and there’s plenty of enthusiasm.

They also say the nation has focused on the GOP race to pick a challenger to Obama and that once that choice is made, the Democratic base will become energized.

“The moment the Republicans have their nominee is when you’re going to see anyone still on the fence jump in,” says Chad Griffin, a Los Angeles-based communications strategist and Democratic fundraiser. “Once you have a head-to-head matchup, the contrast will be grand.”

Numbers compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show that while overall political contributions were up in Hollywood for the first three-quarters of this year compared with the same period four years ago, contributions to Democrats were slightly down.

According to the group, the movie, television and recording industries gave $17,639,267 in the first three-quarters to federal candidates and parties. The breakdown was 71 percent to the Democrats and 29 percent to Republicans, as opposed to $15,642,561 four years ago, when 77 percent went to the Democrats and 23 percent to Republicans.

But numbers for the Democrats were down by more than $2.5 million from four years ago – $9,249,303 this year compared with $11,966,077 four years ago.

Obama’s fundraisers note that four years ago, Obama was locked in a tense primary battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton, and primaries drive early fundraising.

“A re-election is always different,” says Andy Spahn, a longtime political adviser to one of the top Democratic fundraisers in the nation, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, along with his partners Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.

He calls the current mood among Hollywood Democrats a “matured enthusiasm,” but says support is strong.

Though Damon’s remarks about the president have been the most pointed, other celebrities have expressed disappointment, or at least mild disillusionment.

“I love the president like most of us,” Sean “Diddy” Combs told Source magazine this year. “I just want the president to do better.”

And will.i.am, creator of that viral video that ended with the word “HOPE,” told The New York Times earlier this year: “I don’t want to hope anymore.” Asked if he was disappointed in Obama, he said: “I don’t feel disappointed. I feel like, Argggh! Speak louder! I feel like, Do something!”

What about core Obama celebrity supporters Clooney and Winfrey? Far from being disillusioned with Obama, Clooney said recently: “I’m disillusioned by the people who are disillusioned by Obama.”

“Democrats eat their own,” the actor said. “I’m a firm believer in sticking by and sticking up for the people whom you’ve elected.” He went on to list the accomplishments of the Obama administration, wondering why Democrats weren’t selling them better.

Winfrey, credited with helping Obama win over many women in 2008, told Politico in August: “I’m in his corner for whatever he needs me to do.”

There already have been plenty of celebrities hosting or showing up at Obama fundraising events. Actress Eva Longoria hosted one at the home of Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas. Lady Gaga attended a September fundraiser at the home of Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. Alicia Keys performed at a New York fundraiser.

Over the summer, film executive Harvey Weinstein held a Manhattan event sprinkled with celebrities including Keys, Jimmy Fallon, and Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin. A 50th birthday-themed fundraiser in Chicago featured performances by Jennifer Hudson, Herbie Hancock and the band OK Go.

Of course, celebrity support isn’t always a win-win for a candidate. Just as Obama’s opponents in 2008 tried to use his taste for arugula to paint him as elitist, they tried to use his celebrity connections to imply he was lightweight, all pizazz and no substance – most pointedly in an ad tenuously linking him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

The tactic seemed to scare Obama’s campaign enough to play down the role of celebrities at the Democratic convention that summer. Will the campaign similarly seek to downplay the celebrity role this time?

“Celebrities are helpful in terms of exciting a base,” says Griffin, the fundraiser. “I don’t think the president will have any shortage of surrogates.”

One thing is clear: They won’t include Damon, and the president wasn’t shy about making a few jokes at the actor’s expense back in May, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

“Matt Damon said he was disappointed in my performance,” the president noted. Then he referred to one of Damon’s recent films. “Well, Matt, I just saw `The Adjustment Bureau,’ so right back atcha, buddy.”

Damon, whose representatives did not respond to a request for comment, has given no sign that he plans to do anything as dramatic as switch sides in November. The real danger, say some Obama supporters, is that comments like his would lead voters, especially younger ones, to stay home.

That’s a threat the president faces in places well beyond Hollywood.

Ken Sunshine, a prominent public relations consultant who has represented entertainers and politicians, thinks that ultimately “the activist community in entertainment and everywhere else will come home and support the president’s re-election with the same degree of enthusiasm as before – if for no other reason than … consider the alternative!”

“But once we help him get re-elected,” Sunshine adds, “then we really hold his feet to the fire in the second term.”

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Devoid of any major policy pushes, much of the year will instead focus on the biggest goal of all: winning a second term. The president will keep up a robust domestic travel schedule and aggressive campaign fundraising and use executive action to try to boost the economy.

Unlike the partisan, down-to-the-wire fights over allowing the nation to take on more debt and sharply reducing government spending that defined 2011, there are almost no must-do pieces of legislation facing the president and Congress in the new year.

The one exception: negotiations in early 2012 on a full-year extension of a cut in the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Democrats and Republicans are still divided over how to implement the extension. But the White House believes GOP lawmakers boxed themselves in during the pre-Christmas debate on the tax break and will be hard-pressed to back off their own assertions that it should continue through the end of 2012.

Once that debate is over, the White House says, Obama’s political fate will no longer be tied to Washington.

“Now that he’s sort of free from having to put out these fires, the president will have a larger playing field. If that includes Congress, all the better,” said Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary. But, he added, “that’s no longer a requirement.”

Aides say the president will not turn his back on Congress completely in the new year. He is expected to once again push lawmakers to pass elements of his jobs bill that were blocked by Republicans last fall.

If those efforts fail, the White House says, Obama’s re-election year will focus almost exclusively on executive action. Earnest said Obama will unveil at least two or three directives per week – a continuation of the “We Can’t Wait” campaign the administration began this fall – and seek to define Republicans in Congress as gridlocked and dysfunctional.

Obama’s election year retreat from legislative fights means this term will end without significant progress on two of his 2008 campaign promises: comprehensive immigration reform and closing the military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Piecemeal presidential directives are unlikely to make a sizeable dent in the nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate or lead to significant improvements in the economy, the top concern for many voters and the issue on which Republican candidates are most likely to criticize Obama.

In focusing on small-bore executive actions rather than ambitious legislation, the president risks appearing to be putting election-year strategy ahead of economic action at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.

“Americans expect their elected leaders to work together to boost job creation, even in an election year,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Still, Obama and his advisers are beginning 2012 with a renewed sense of confidence, buoyed by a series of polls that show the president’s approval rating climbing as Congress becomes increasingly unpopular. And they believe his victory over Republicans in the payroll tax debate has boosted his credentials as a fighter for the middle class, a mantle Obama will look to seize on in his Jan. 24 State of the Union address.

Aides say that while the president is just starting to brainstorm ideas for the speech, he’s certain to strike a populist tone and tap into middle-class frustrations with growing income inequality. And he’s expected to focus on similar themes when he’s campaigning around the country.

Obama’s campaign-driven, domestic-travel blitz starts in Cleveland on Wednesday, the day after GOP presidential hopefuls square off in the Iowa caucuses. He will also keep up an aggressive re-election fundraising schedule, with events already lined up in Chicago on Jan. 11.

Campaign officials say Obama will fully engage in the re-election campaign once the Republicans pick their nominee. He will focus almost exclusively on campaigning after the late summer Democratic National Convention, barring unexpected developments at home or abroad.

Among the issues that could disrupt Obama’s re-election plans: further economic turmoil in Europe, instability in North Korea following its leadership transition and threats from Iran.

The president’s signature legislative accomplishment will also come under greater scrutiny in the new year, when a key provision in his health care overhaul is debated before the Supreme Court. White House officials say Obama will not shy away from the measure. Instead, he will double down in his defense of it and highlight new aspects of the law that go into effect in 2012.

With domestic issues a top concern for voters, Obama’s foreign travel next year will be limited mainly to the summits and international gatherings every U.S. president traditionally attends. He’s expected to travel to South Korea in March for a nuclear security summit and to Colombia in April for the Summit of the Americas. He’s also likely to visit Mexico in June for the G-20 economic summit.

Two other major international gatherings – the NATO summit and the G-8 economic meeting – will be held in Chicago, giving Obama a chance to promote his standing in the international community on his home turf.

5. Occupy Wall Street – A protester’s game that has even reached the inner harbor of Baltimore.

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Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry both ripped Obama this week for his remarks, which he made during a speech during last week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii.

Although Obama was referring to America’s pursuit of foreign investment, his detractors immediately pounced.

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“Can you believe that? That’s what our president thinks is wrong with America. That Americans are lazy?” says a denim-clad Perry in a new campaign ad released Wednesday evening in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Perry makes the remarks after a clip of Obama plays of the president saying, “We’ve been a little bit lazy, I think over the last couple of decades.”

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The outreach effort, called “Greater Together,” will tap Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites and target students on college campuses in key states, such as the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University and Penn State.

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The initiative’s website will go up Tuesday, and the first of a series of “Obama Student Summits” will be held Nov. 2 in Philadelphia, featuring Mayor Michael Nutter and Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. The summit and future ones on other campuses will solicit questions and feedback on a live Twitter feed.

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The idea behind it was to reiterate legislation that already exists: denying federal funding of abortions. It passed, but will go nowhere, do nothing and help no one. The measures it proposed are already fully codified in law. Waste of time, energy and paperwork? Absolutely.

Earlier this week, Democrats in the Senate voted 51-49 to advance President Obama’s American Jobs Act, but lacking any Republican support, it failed to reach the crucial, 60 vote margin necessary to move forward. Waste of time? Absolutely. Your time.

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I would hope and expect that President Obama can recover from his political slide, but it’s difficult to move the country forward when the economy isn’t giving you the political engine that you need. Bush’s extreme drop in popularity was also connected with the decline in the economy and pending crash in the banking industry, but the former president helped things along by simply being an incompetent leader.

President Obama is not an incompetent leader, just a weak one. Americans who went to the polls believing in the carefully-packaged marketing gimmick called “Hope and Change” are now wondering if  Obama actually has the courage to pursue the kind of political change he sold to us in 2008. Rather than the bold leadership our country needed and expected, we’ve seen compromise to the point of surrender, and an administration that has rarely shown any willingness to take meaningful political risks.

You can break Obama dissidents into two “Hope and Change” categories:  Those who hope that we are going to change presidents, and those who hope that Obama himself will change leadership styles. It’s hard to build bridges to nowhere, when the man across the table from you has been given a blank check from his constituents to get you out of the White House at any cost. The friendly white folks that President Obama hung out with at Harvard University have been replaced by ruthless gangster-hillbillies who will scorch the earth to get what they want.

As expected, Republicans smell blood in the water and are seizing their chance to take over the White House. But any intelligent person can see that the Republicans have been a key reason the president hasn’t been able to get anything done – they are no different from the man who murders a woman’s boyfriend and then tries to go on a date with her after the funeral.

Republicans have also shown that their racist disdain for President Obama is even stronger than their love for America. By threatening to drive the nation off an economic cliff during recent debt negotiations, Republicans have made it clear that they will destroy heaven and earth to get President Obama out of the White House.  None of this reflects the patriotism needed to make our country a better place, and it also represents a step backward in our quest for true racial equality.

The job for President Obama is going to become even more difficult, since getting out of recessions costs money. The original stimulus package in early 2008 was not only too small, it was targeted toward the very same Wall Street bankers who caused the crisis in the first place. As a result, Wall Street executives were the first to recover economically, and many of these bankers are back to getting their multimillion dollar bonuses. The Obama Administration can only blame themselves for much of this, because too many members of Obama’s economic team came right out of Wall Street themselves.

I’m sure there are top secret reasons that the Obama Administration appears to maintain more loyalty to corporate America than to the rest of us. But the president’s political aspirations may go down bloody and burning because of his willingness to play the political game instead of trying to change it. Using the title of one of the president’s books, I have the audacity to hope that President Obama has learned some political lessons and will allow his leadership to evolve over time. I truly wonder, however, if he himself has the audacity to believe he can do it.

Even more sinister is whether or not Hillary Clinton is lurking in the background, waiting to pounce on an opportunity to steal the Democratic nomination away from President Obama. I can hear the quiet little “I told you so,” from the woman whose face possesses the seasoned wrinkles of someone with more than her share of Washington battle scars. At this point, the temptation to replace President Obama with a Republican is less appealing (to most) than the idea of replacing him with a more ferocious Democrat. Personally, I hate the idea of concluding that the Black man wasn’t the best fit for the job, so a better version of Obama would be preferable to the same old Hillary Clinton.

Mr. President: You can’t spend your life trying to make your enemies comfortable. True leadership requires sacrifice and courage, almost none of which you’ve shown, especially on the issue of racial inequality. America needs a strong Commander-in-Chief during difficult times.

There’s a famous statement by Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata who said, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” The only thing worse than living on your knees is dying on them; but this may be exactly what happens to the seemingly weak Obama presidency. By tap dancing on territory where he should have been stomping, President Obama may be slowly digging his own political grave.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and author of the book, “Black American Money.” To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Rev. Jesse Jackson called into question President Obama’s toughness this weekend in regards to his handling of the debt ceiling talks.

Obama, who has been criticized by many for compromising with the stalwart Republicans, struck a deal that helped the country avert a financial crisis.

Jackson, who spoke to Politico.com, said that the president is to trusting of Republicans when he shouldn’t be.

“He has a propensity to be trusting, on the side of reconciliation,” Jackson said to POLITICO. “He kind of underestimates how ideological these guys are and how determined they are to destroy him.”

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