“We literally called Jon Corzine. We called Jon Corzine because we knew that he knew about the economy, about the world markets, about how we had to respond.”

The quote above is from Vice President Joe Biden, talking about the people he asked for advice from during the financial crisis.

Jon Corzine recently resigned as the CEO of MF Global. The firm declared bankruptcy after making bad bets on European Sovereign debt.

The bankruptcy was the fourth-largest financial firm in U.S. history, and the eighth largest overall.

The big bets on European sovereign debt were mostly due to arrogance and naiveté.

The Obama administration is much closer to Corzine than even the quote indicates. Corzine was so close to becoming the Secretary of the Treasury that an unheard of type of bond was issued by MF Global. MF Global issued debt for which the yield would rise if Corzine became Secretary of the Treasury. Thankfully the American people likely do not have to worry about this.

A lot of people ask, is President Barack Obama that foolish or is he trying to destroy the country?

The latest decision by the president to delay Keystone XL was an example of why voters are asking this question. Keystone XL is a pipeline that was supposed to carry oil from Canada to Texas. The pipeline would have created tens of thousands of real shovel-ready jobs. Despite numerous reports that the pipeline was safe, President Obama stated that 12-16 months were needed for further review.

Conveniently, 12-16 months is right after the elections. But not only won’t Americans not forget this, neither will the Canadians. For the first time in recent memory, the Canadian government is very angry at the United States. Canada stated its intention to instead just ship the oil to Asia (China).

President Obama also stated that we needed to get off our addiction to oil from unfriendly countries. There is no better ally of the United States than Canada. We should be glad to buy oil from them instead of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

As oil hovers around $100, the U.S. consumer is starting to feel the pain at the gas pumps. Approving Keystone XL would have signaled to the oil markets that the United States is serious about breaking up OPEC’s cartel. Now OPEC knows that the United States is not serious about any oil operations in Canada or the U.S.

This decision will not only hurt workers, it will hurt all Americans who drive every day to work to make a living.

We now finally have the answer: President Obama, like Corzine, is both arrogant and naïve.