And I quote: “Based on safety I think the President should give this project the stamp of approval. Environmental groups obviously think differently. And so do the majority of people on the left. But this newsflash: We’re not getting out of the oil business in America. It runs our economy. Do we have climate change? Yes we do. But the construction of this pipeline does not mean we are going to consume more as a country. … So a brand-new pipeline, to me, makes sense.”

That was Ed Schultz, in February.

Ed Schultz in February, meet Ed Schultz in March.

It was April of 1965, April 17th. There were 25,000 people who showed up to protest the Vietnam War. … And it evolved to this, this day, November 15, 1969, that’s what a half a million people looked like when they’re on the mall in Washington, D.C. This is the largest anti-war demonstration in American history. Is the pipeline that bad? I think it’s fantastic that there was a demonstration on Sunday in Washington and there were 400 people. Maybe it’s because of fax machines. Maybe it’s because of the internet. Maybe it’s because of iPhones, maybe it’s because of text messaging and the information age. Maybe we’re just a different society today. I don’t know what it’s going to take to stop the pipeline and get the message to the President of the United States. But for reference, this is what we had to do to stop war. So all of these folks across the America who want to stop the pipeline, you’re in the 11th hour.

That was his Tuesday night broadcast in response to the anti-Keystone XL protest of about 1,000-ish people at the White House fence on Sunday. Later in the show, Schultz mentioned, “I question the [point] about creating jobs. It ain’t that many,” and then on Wednesday night, he got a lot more explicit.

Well, we’re getting into the ‘Say Anything, Do Anything’ phase of the Keystone XL pipeline. … Conservatives, what they’re doing right now is that they are exploiting a foreign policy situation overseas to get something that they really want, and they really don’t know a hell of a lot about. … Go visit the Bakken shale. Go to North Dakota, find out just how much oil is coming out of the ground. We’ve got so much oil coming out of the ground in this country — a record amount, I might add — Warren Buffett can’t own enough trains. … Mr. President, say no to this project. I turn this night, on this program. I was wrong.

The “‘Say Anything, Do Anything’ phase of the Keystone XL pipeline”? And he’s berating conservatives for supporting something “they really don’t know a hell of a lot about,” apparently unaware that the pipeline will also ship products from the Bakken shale from which we’re currently producing a “record amount” of oil? And also apparently blithely ignorant of the effect that even just signaling a readily pro-production, pro-infrastructure attitude can have on prices in the global oil market? Can he hear himself?

So, in the matter of a month, his loyalties switched from a Big-Labor pro-Keystone XL stance to a Big-Environmentalist anti-Keystone XL stance. How fascinating.