The Commentariat -- Sept. 6, 2013

Peter Baker & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "President Obama ran into an impasse in his bid to rally international backing for a military strike on Syria as world leaders wrapped up a summit meeting here Friday deeply divided over the right response to what the Americans have called the deadliest nerve gas attack in decades." ...

... ** In his news conference, President Obama said he would be addressing the American people from the White House re: Syria. Sounds as if he's planning a strike sooner rather than later. ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit here Friday, as the U.S. leader used the final day of the summit to seek broader international support for a U.S.-led military strike on Syria, backing that he hopes would help legitimize military action in the minds of U.S. lawmakers and the American public."

No Surprise Here. Nicole Perlroth, et al., of the New York Times, with ProPublica & the Guardian: "The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents. The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world..." ...

... James Ball, et al., of the Guardian: "US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden." ...

... Worse than the NSA. Martha Mendoza of the AP: "Attorneys suing Google say the firm violates privacy and takes personal property by electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts and then targeting ads to them." CW: Plus, I see I'm a co-conspirator in this scam as Google g-mails the comments to Reality Chex. Yesterday P. D. Pepe wrote, in part, "@Unwashed: It's from the Latin which literally means to whom (is it) a benefit? Let's all take a guess at whose wheels would be greased." So I guess she should expect to start getting ads for bar soap, Berlitz, tires & STP. Sorry.

David Sanger & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "President Obama has directed the Pentagon to develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response to intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress debates whether to authorize military action. Mr. Obama, officials said, is now determined to put more emphasis on the 'degrade' part of what the administration has said is the goal of a military strike against Syria -- to 'deter and degrade' Mr. Assad's ability to use chemical weapons. That means expanding beyond the 50 or so major sites that were part of the original target list developed with French forces...." ...

     ... Update: President Obama said in his presser of this piece, "That report is inaccurate." ...

... Stuart Williams of AFP: "World leaders at the G20 summit on Friday failed to bridge their bitter divisions over US plans for military action against the Syrian regime, as Washington slammed Moscow for holding the UN Security Council 'hostage' over the crisis. Despite not being on the original agenda of the summit hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin outside Saint Petersburg, the leaders discussed the Syria crisis into the early hours of the morning over dinner amid the splendour of a former imperial palace." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama arrived at the Group of 20 summit [in St. Petersburg, Russia,] on Thursday on the defensive as he sought international support for a strike on Syria and confronted the meeting's host and chief skeptic, President Vladimir V. Putin, after a period of deepening tension between the two." ...

... Philip Rucker & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: President "Obama will be doing outreach to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill during his two-day visit to Russia for the Group of 20 summit, deputy national security adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes told reporters here Thursday. On Wednesday, during his visit to Sweden, Obama made five calls to a bipartisan group of senators as part of the administration-wide effort to lobby lawmakers on Syria, Rhodes said." ...

... Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times: "President Obama's hopes of winning congressional approval for a U.S. military strike on Syria could come down to the persuasion skills of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal who was a leading critic of the war in Iraq." ...

... Kasie Hunt of NBC News: "Lawmakers were shown a gruesome video depicting dozens of people killed by nerve gas as part of a classified, closed-door briefing Thursday laying out the Obama administration's case for action against Syrian President Bashar Assad." ...

... ** Tim Egan: "You may think George W. Bush is at home in his bathtub, painting pictures of his toenails, but in fact he's the biggest presence in the debate over what to do in Syria." Read the whole post.

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "... watching Republican pols and conservative pundits get on their high horses about Syria has been pretty nauseating. These are guys who mostly have never met a war they didn't like, and until a few months ago were practically baying at the moon to demand that that President Obama stop diddling around and get serious about aiding the rebels and taking out the monstrous Bashar al-Assad. But now? ... They talk piously about the value of multilateral support; the need to give diplomacy a chance; the perils of regional blowback; the lessons of Iraq; and the fear of escalation if Assad retaliates. You'd think they'd all just returned from a Save the Whales conference in Marin County."

... AFP: "Three Russian warships crossed Turkey's Bosphorus Strait Thursday en route to the eastern Mediterranean, near the Syrian coast, amid concern in the region over potential US-led strikes in response to the Damascus regime's alleged use of chemical weapons. The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported."

... Michael Holden of Reuters: "Britain has new evidence that chemical weapons were used in an attack on the Syrian capital Damascus, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday. Cameron said scientists at Britain's Porton Down military research facility had analyzed samples taken from an alleged gas attack on a rebel-held Damascus neighborhood on August 21 and concluded they had tested positive for the sarin nerve agent." ...

** Paul Krugman: "Right now, Washington seems divided between Republicans who denounce any kind of government action -- who insist that all the policies and programs that mitigated the crisis actually made it worse and Obama loyalists who insist that they did a great job because the world didn't totally melt down. Obviously, the Obama people are less wrong than the Republicans. But, by any objective standard, U.S. economic policy since Lehman has been an astonishing, horrifying failure."

If you want to know the real reason Republicans oppose ObamaCare, Charles Pierce will enlighten you. It's an existential threat! ...

... Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: "As new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation" finds that under the ACA insurance exchanges, 'premiums will vary significantly across the country..., [but] they are generally lower than expected.'"

CW: I know it's difficult to win the prize for Biggest Hypocrite in Congress, but I'd give it to Stephen Fincher (RTP-Tenn.), a strong opponent of food stamps, which are authorized via the omnibus farm bill, because -- sez he -- lazy people who "are unwilling to work" shouldn't eat, and "The role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country." Steve Benen: "Fincher collected nearly $3.5 million in taxpayer-financed farm subsidies from 1999 to 2012, including roughly $70,000 just last year in the form of direct payments from Washington."

Presidential Election 2012

Mitt Romney Was Right about Everything! McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "... Republicans are suddenly celebrating the presidential also-ran as a political prophet. From his widely mocked warnings about a hostile Russia to his adamant opposition to the increasingly unpopular implementation of Obamacare, the ex-candidate's canon of campaign rhetoric now offers cause for vindication -- and remorse -- to Romney's friends, supporters, and former advisers." ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos lays to rest the Romney-Was-Right meme. CW: In addition, I'd ask -- Who besides the Voice of the Angel Moroni could possibly have predicted that Putin would continue to be an asshole, that there would be trouble in the Middle East & Africa or that ObamaCare would be difficult to implement? ...

... "Mitt the Prophet." Ed Kilgore: "... please, don’t pretend that the heavily financed mendacious shuffle which the Romney campaign represented from beginning to end was in fact some sort of prophetic stance." CW: Yeah, if you flip-flop on every issue, some of your flips or flops are bound to be right. "All of the above" does not a soothsayer make.

Rose-Colored Ronnie

I know that President Reagan would have never let this happen. He would stand up to this. And President Obama -- the only reason he is consulting with Congress, he wants to blame somebody for his lack of resolve. We have to think like President Reagan would do and he would say chemical use is unacceptable. -- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee ...

... Steve Benen: "... Reagan ... did largely the opposite of what Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said he did with regards to the use of chemical weapons.... Indeed, after Saddam Hussein gassed his own people, Reagan dispatched ... wait for it ... Donald Rumsfeld to help solidify the relationship between the Reagan administration and the brutal, murderous Iraqi dictator. Rumsfeld gladly shook hands with Hussein after he used chemical weapons to kill Iraqi dissidents." Read the whole post for a recap of Reagan's looking the other way when our Friend in Baghdad used chemical weapons to commit genocide.

One Way to Get Paid Vacations. Ann Marimow & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "Over the past 12 years, John C. Beale was often away from his job as a high-level staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency. He cultivated an air of mystery and explained his lengthy absences by telling his bosses that he was doing top-secret work, including for the CIA. For years, apparently, no one checked. Now, Beale is charged with stealing nearly $900,000 from the EPA by receiving pay and bonuses he did not deserve. He faces up to three years in prison."

News Ledes

Bloomberg News: "Payrolls in the U.S. climbed less than projected in August after smaller gains the prior two months, indicating companies are being deliberate in their hiring as they wait for a pickup in demand. The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell as more people left the labor force. The gain of 169,000 workers last month followed a revised 104,000 rise in July that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today...."

AP: "An Arizona woman who has spent more than two decades on death row after being convicted of having her 4-year-old son killed for an insurance payout is expected to be released on Friday while she awaits a retrial of the case that made her one of the state's most reviled inmates. Judge Rosa Mroz of Maricopa County Superior Court set Debra Milke's bond at $250,000 a day earlier, saying there's no direct evidence linking her to her son's death other than a purported confession to a detective. And, the judge said, the validity of that confession is in doubt."

AFP: "Suspected Taliban in Afghanistan shot dead Indian author Sushmita Banerjee, whose book about her dramatic escape from the militants in the 90s became a Bollywood film, police said on Thursday. Police in insurgency-hit Paktika province, in the east of Afghanistan, said they found the body of the 49 year old on Thursday morning, after the militants dragged her out of her husband's home late in the night and shot her repeatedly."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 5, 2013

** Alex de Waal & Bridget Conley-Zilkic of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts, in a New York Times op-ed: "What's missing [in the Obama plan to strike Syria] is a political effort to seek peace. No talks are scheduled. The regional power brokers -- Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which support the rebels, and Iran, which backs Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad -- are at odds. American military action without a peace process involving all actors would only intensify the two-year-old war.... The only aim of intervention should be peace...." The authors incorporate the writings of William Harcourt, a/k/a "Historicus," who argued against British intervention in the American Civil War. ...

... ** Fareed Zakaria in Time: " What exactly is the goal of this military action? The Administration says it is simply to reinforce a global norm against the use of chemical weapons.... The reality is, the U.S. has now put its credibility on the line. It will find it extremely difficult to keep its actions limited in a volatile situation. And were it to succeed in ousting Assad, it would be implicated in the next phase of this war, which would almost certainly lead to chaos and the slaughter or ethnic cleansing of the Alawite sect (to which Assad belongs) and perhaps of other minorities, as happened in Iraq." Read for the last graf on George Bush Pere. ...

... C. J. Chivers of the New York Times: "... many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow. As the United States debates whether to support the Obama administration’s proposal that Syrian forces should be attacked for using chemical weapons against civilians, [a] video [showing rebels killing soldiers in cold blood], shot in April, joins a growing body of evidence of an increasingly criminal environment populated by gangs of highwaymen, kidnappers and killers." CW: The page includes what I surmise is the video; I didn't click on it. ...

... Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "Top intelligence officials in two Middle East countries said they have examined the potential for bioweapons use by Syria, perhaps as retaliation for Western military strikes on Damascus. Although dwarfed by the country's larger and better-known chemical weapons program, Syria's bioweapons capability could offer the Assad regime a way to retaliate because the weapons are designed to spread easily and leave few clues about their origins, the officials said." ...

... Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "In the shadow of a confrontation over whether Syria's government had attacked civilians with internationally banned chemical munitions, a rights group, [Human Rights Watch,] reported Wednesday that Syrian armed forces had repeatedly used cluster bombs, another widely prohibited weapon, in the country's civil war." ...

... Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking House Democrats for more input in the Syria debate. In a 'Dear Colleague' letter to her caucus -- Pelosi's second in as many days -- the Democratic leader urged lawmakers to voice their concerns about President Obama's proposal for military strikes against the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Pelosi's request is part of a broader effort to formulate a resolution for Syrian intervention that can pass through the House in the face of widespread misgivings from rank-and-file members on both sides of the aisle." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A divided Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved an authorization of force against the Syrian government, setting up a showdown next week in the full Senate on whether President Obama should have the authority to strike. The 10-to-7 vote showed bipartisan support for a strike, but bipartisan opposition as well. Republicans voting yes included Senators John McCain of Arizona, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Democrats against the authorization included Senators Tom Udall of New Mexico and Chris Murphy of Connecticut. The Senate's newest member, Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, voted present.... The committee's bipartisan leaders pressed forward with a resolution limiting the duration and nature of military strikes, while Mr. McCain demanded more -- not less -- latitude for the military to inflict damage on the government of President Bashar al-Assad." ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) -- the congressman who yelled 'you lie' during President Obama's 2010 State of the Union speech -- asked Wednesday if the administration's decision to attack Syria was made to distract from other 'scandals' like Benghazi and the IRS." ...

     ... CW: over there on supposedly MSM CNN, supposedly straight reporter Jessica Yellin (Mrs. John King) defended Wilson as a MOC who genuinely mistrusted the President. ...

     ... Steve Benen: "Now, I can appreciate a wild-eyed conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but even by House GOP standards, this is just stark raving mad. First, the 'scandals' Wilson believes in don't exist; things are going fairly well for the Affordable Care Act; and sequestration was Republicans' fault." Benen notes that Wilson was joined by all-around conspiracy loon Jeff Duncan (RTP-S.C.). ...

     ... Charles Pierce comments on Duncan. ...

... Dana Milbank: "Officials say the evidence is incontrovertible that Assad used sarin gas against his people. Lawmakers emerging from secret, classified briefings seem to agree. But while members of Congress are coming around to an attack on Syria, the American public remains skeptical. Why? Maybe it's because the government won't let them in on the secret." ...

... CW: Peter Baker of the New York Times didn't mention this in the story I linked yesterday re: President Obama's joint presser in Stockholm, but it is important. Peter Nicholas & David Gautier-Villars of the Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Obama said on Wednesday that he could order strikes against Syria even if Congress doesn't authorize them, but that 'we will be stronger as a country in our response if the president and Congress does it together.'"

Elections Matter. Jeremy Herb of the Hill: "The Obama administration will begin providing veterans benefits to same-sex couples after the Justice Department said Wednesday it would not enforce a law restricting them. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that the Justice Department would not enforce a federal statute providing benefits only to opposite-sex spouses. The administration's decision is being made in response to the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in June."

Explainer-in-Chief. Jason Millman of the Politico: "Former President Bill Clinton, recruited by the White House to explain the misunderstood health law, is looking to play Obamacare peacemaker. In a highly-anticipated speech from his presidential library, Clinton challenged Republicans to finally work with Democrats to improve on President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement instead of constantly trying to undermine it."

... New York Times Editors: "A new Census Bureau report documents the alarming percentages of people in Texas and Florida without health insurance. Leaders of both states should hang their heads in shame because they have been among the most resistant in the nation to providing coverage for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act, the law that Republicans deride as 'Obamacare.'" CW: Almost all Floridians will pay for the bad behavior of America's Second-Worst Governor & his cohort, first because they have unleashed the insurance industry from rate regulation, & second because calculated into those new, higher rates will be a surcharge to cover Flordians on the George Dubya Bush Emergency Room-Only Plan. (Scott did want to accept Medicaid aid; the doofuses in the state legislature said no.)

Linda Greenhouse on a little-known Oklahoma abortion case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this term, this one threatening early-first-term "medication abortions." CW: every time I read about men passing anti-abortion laws "to protect women," I get furiouser & furiouser.

Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: "Current and former White House officials wary of [Larry] Summers have been reluctant to criticize him, leaving the field open for his active team of supporters. But as it becomes increasingly clear that the president is willing to nominate Summers in the face of intense opposition, that reluctance is fading.... Obama and others in the White House who support Summers were deeply impressed by his ability to navigate the financial crisis. Administration officials who endured the tumultuous crisis period -- and many people who didn't -- assume the next crisis is a matter of when, not if. Obama has confidence that Summers would be effective in handling such a crisis, while he barely knows [Janet] Yellen." CW: these "former senior officials" need to be willing to put their names to their Larry-Is-a-Dick remarks if they want me to cite them. ...

... Atrios: "If you think another financial crisis is inevitable, you're doing it wrong. They aren't earthquakes. They aren't 'acts of God.' They're a product of the system. If they're inevitable, it's because you (the people in charge) are presiding over a system that makes them inevitable."

Wednesday "President Obama participate[d] in an event at the Great Synagogue in Stockholm honoring Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat and honorary U.S. citizen who worked courageously to save lives while serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest during World War II":

     ... AFP Update: "US President Barack Obama will ask Moscow what happened to Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg after he was taken into Soviet custody and disappeared in 1945, Wallenberg's family told Swedish media."

The Baby-Cam Is Spying on You. Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission took its first action to protect consumers from reckless invasions of privacy, penalizing a company that sells Web-enabled video cameras for lax security practices. According to the F.T.C., the company, TRENDnet, told customers that its products were 'secure,' marketing its cameras for home security and baby monitoring. In fact, the devices were compromised. The commission said a hacker in January 2012 exploited a security flaw and posted links to the live feeds, which 'displayed babies asleep in their cribs, young children playing and adults going about their daily lives.'"

Local News

Michelle Smith of the AP: "Gov. Lincoln Chafee is not running for a second term, he said Wednesday in an announcement that surprised his political opponents and closest advisors alike and takes him out of what was expected to be a fierce primary in his new Democratic Party. The governor, who became a Democrat in May, has struggled with poor approval ratings and is a reluctant fundraiser, although he said on Wednesday he liked being governor and thinks he would have won re-election. But he described campaigning as hugely time-consuming, and said the state faces so many serious challenges that he wouldn't be able to effectively be governor and run for governor at the same time."

David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R)'s family and business partner have been receiving payments from a secret Political Action Committee called Real PAC. Half a million dollars of the money donated to the PAC has come from corporate health care interests which -- like the governor and Georgia state Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens -- oppose the implementation of the Affordable Care Act ... According to investigative reporter Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered, the PAC hasn’t filed taxes or the required financial disclosures in two years, and the information it did file for 2011 was incorrect. Contributors to Real PAC include Aetna, Humana, Blue Cross, United Health care and other interests that want to keep health insurance premiums and other costs as high as possible." ...

     ... CW: Thanks to contribution James S. for the lead. Here's my favorite sentence in the story: " The PAC's treasurer, former state ethics chairman Rick Thompson, protested that the PAC money is not just for Deal's re-election, but for 'Republican causes.'" (Emphasis added.) The part about Hudgens boasting that he is doing everything he can to obstruct ObamaCare makes me think it's high time the DOJ file charges him & other flagrantly obstructionist officials for failing to comply with federal law. They would squeal to the heavens, but they probably would start enforcing the law.

CW: Gail Collins discusses the New York City mayoral candidates, paying scant attention to Anthony Weiner, who is running 4th in a field of four, if I'm not mistaken. Fortunately, Weiner doesn't need Collins' help in calling attention to himself. ...

... Happy New Year! Kaili Joy Gray of Wonkette has a hilarious take on this "Talmudic dialogue" between Anthony Weiner & a citizen who called Weiner a scumbag, to which Weiner responded that the citizen was a jackass, etc., etc.:

     ... Update. "Married to an Arab": In today's Comments, Haley S. writes that the AP reports, "In another video, released by the Weiner campaign later Wednesday, the man can be heard saying 'married to an Arab,' presumably a reference to Weiner's Muslim wife, Huma Abedin...." I located & listened to a tape posted by TPM, which is here. The confrontation begins at 3:45 min. in. Somebody definitely says "... married to an Arab," but I'm not 100 percent sure it was the same heckler who made the remark. At the moment the remark was made, the heckler was paying his bill, so he might have made the comment to the clerk. But later, during the confrontation, the guy expresses sympathy for Weiner's wife. Weiner himself, notably, vociferously defends himself but never defends his wife, so it's also not clear he heard the "married to an Arab remark," especially since he was leaving the bakery at the time, it was noisy, he was some distance from the heckler & had his back to him. There are three sides to every story.

Gubernatorial Race

Washington Post Editors: Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (RTP) is lying about his poast sponsorship of anti-contraception, "personhood" legislation.

News Ledes

Al Jazeera America: "Thousands of Walmart employees are striking Thursday in cities across the United States, demanding better pay and protesting the firing of those who previously demonstrated against the company -- the country's largest private employer, with 1.3 million American workers. The strike comes just one week after fast-food workers staged walk-outs at fast-food restaurants in 60 U.S. cities to call for hourly pay of $15 instead of minimum wage. According to strike organizers, many Walmart workers earn the minimum wage, which varies from state to state but typically hovers near $7 to $8 per hour."

Al Jazeera America: "The gigantic Rim Fire raging in and around Yosemite National Park began when a hunter allowed an illegal fire to escape, investigators from the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Investigations and Tuolumne County District Attorney's Office reported Thursday."

Reuters: "The number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms surged in August to their highest in half a year, with industrial goods manufacturers the hardest hit, a report on Thursday showed. Employers announced 50,462 layoffs last month, up 33.8 percent from 37,701 in July...."

AFP: "Iran will support Syria 'until the end' in the face of possible US-led military strikes, the chief of Iran's elite Quds Force unit was quoted Thursday by the media as saying. Iran is Syria's main regional ally and some analysts believe a wider goal of US President Barack Obama's determination to launch a strike against the Damascus regime is to blunt Tehran's growing regional influence and any consequent threat to Washington ally Israel."

AP: " A 'large' explosive targeted the convoy of Egypt's interior minister Thursday in Cairo's eastern Nasr City district, the first attack on a senior government official since a coup toppled the country's Islamist president two months ago. The minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, survived the attack, which damaged the convoy's cars and injured at least eight people, including two policemen and a child seriously. There were no fatalities."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 4, 2013

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Opening a three-day trip overseas at a delicate moment for his presidency, Mr. Obama challenged lawmakers and allies to stand behind his plans for a cruise missile attack on the government of President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for what the Obama administration has concluded was a chemical attack that killed 1,400 people in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, last month." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Speaker John A. Boehner said on Tuesday that he would 'support the president's call to action' in Syria after meeting with President Obama, giving the president a crucial ally in the quest for votes in the House. Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, quickly joined Mr. Boehner to say he also backed Mr. Obama." ...

... Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman of Politico: "While most top congressional leaders have vowed to back President Barack Obama in seeking authority to launch missile strikes, there's little evidence that they can -- or even want to -- help him round up the rank-and file-Republicans he'll need to win a vote in the House. Several lawmakers and aides who have been canvassing support say that nearly 80 percent of the House Republican Conference is, to some degree, opposed to launching strikes in Syria. Informal counts by Obama allies show that support in Congress for Obama's plans is in the low dozens." ...

     ... Here's the Washington Post's whip count. ...

... Tom Shanker & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "Two cabinet secretaries [John Kerry & Chuck Hagel] who fought during the Vietnam War and a four-star general [Martin Dempsey] whose views on intervention were shaped by command tours in Iraq appeared before the Senate [Foreign Relations Committee] on Tuesday to argue the Obama administration's case for Congressional authorization to attack Syria over chemical weapons use." ...

... Lives hang in the balance, but John McCain found the hearing totally boring:

"Senator John McCain plays poker on his IPhone during a U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing where Secretary of State JohnKerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey testify concerning the use of force in Syria...."

     ... ** UPDATE: Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reached an agreement late Tuesday on wording of a new resolution authorizing U.S. military force against the Syrian government. The resolution would permit up to 90 days of military action against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, beginning with 60 days and the option of 30 more pending President Obama's notification of Congress, according to a copy of the resolution provided by Senate aides." See further terms in story, which is a breaking story at this point (8:45 pm ET).

... The Times is liveblogging "developments in Washington and around the world on the deliberations about a possible military strike on Syria." ...

... Scott Clement of the Washington Post: "Americans widely oppose launching missile strikes against the Syrian government for its alleged use of chemical weapons, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds little appetite for military action across the country despite a growing drumbeat in Washington. Nearly six in 10 oppose missile strikes...." ...

... Ryan Lucas & Lori Hinnant of the AP: "France's government offers a preview Wednesday of what the Obama administration faces next week, as [French] lawmakers debate the wisdom and necessity of a military response to a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed hundreds." ...

Juan Cole: "Bombs are seldom the answer to geopolitical problems." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. ...

... Damned If He Does; Damned If He Doesn't. Dana Milbank: "Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is in a spirited debate -- with himself." First, Inhofe was against the President's "inaction," then last week he said the country was too broke for military intervention, now he writes he's against inaction. "As Inhofe's conversion on the road to Damascus indicates, Republicans don't like what Obama is doing in Syria -- whatever it is.... On Tuesday, House Republican leaders took steps to build support for authorizing the use of force. Still, they protected their right to criticize Obama when things go wrong. House Speaker John Boehner said he would support the resolution, but his office issued a statement saying, 'It is the president's responsibility to make his case.'" Majority Leader Eric Cantor: "ditto." ...

... Andy Borowitz (satire): "Appearing on the Fox News Channel, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told host Sean Hannity, 'If we're trying to send a strong message to [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, I can think of no better way to do that than by defunding Obamacare.'" ...

... Maureen Dowd: "Once more, we see the magnitude of the tragedy of Iraq because the decision on Syria is so colored by the fact that an American president and vice president took us to war in the Middle East on false pretenses and juiced up intelligence, dragging the country into an emotionally and financially exhausting decade of war and an identity crisis about our role in the world.... It's up to President Obama to show Americans that he knows what he's doing, unlike his predecessor."

When not on his iPhone, John McCain chews up Fox "News" anchor-bigots like Brian Kilmeade. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link:

New York Times Editors: " The [federal government's] move to recognize all same-sex couples' marriages ... makes state bans on same-sex marriage look even more discriminatory." For instance, "Now that same-sex married couples are eligible for federal benefits under rules that don't apply to civil unions, New Jersey's insistence that civil unions are equivalent to marriage is plainly wrong."

"Summers the Shiftless." Paul Krugman: As Binyamin Appelbaum reported in yesterday's Times [linked in yesterday's Commentariat], "the rising odds of a Summers appointment to the Fed is already having a chilling effect on the economy. A Yellen appointment would clearly have represented something new at the Fed -- not just because she is, as Garrison Keillor used to say, a person of gender, but also because she has been a strong and consistent monetary dove, and took that position before it was fashionable. Summers, on the other hand, while he often expresses unconventional views when not in office, has a strong tendency to revert to conventionality when in office. And leaving Summers the person on one side, just think of the historical connections: can you imagine a stronger signal that the same old regime is staying in place than choosing a Robert Rubin protege at this late date? So the apparent decision to appoint Summers is a strong anti-regime-shift signal on Obama's part...." ...

     ... CW: the one thing we have learned about Obama is that he is a very conventional guy. When he says or does something that appears "liberal," it is only because that something is a policy liberals have been advocating since he was in knee-pants -- or before. When he was running for office, we could tell ourselves that his retro policies were political moves designed to win re-election. Guess what? He's still a retro kinda guy. Ergo, Fed Chair Larry. P.S. I don't think Summers the Shiftless will be feting Krugman the Wise any time soon.

Robert Levy, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute, formerly known as the Charles Koch Foundation & still controlled by the Koch brothers, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that states' attempts to nullify federal regulations -- like federal gun laws -- violate the Constitution. "I fully support those who see risks in the expansion of federal power, particularly when it comes to intrusions on basic rights like gun ownership. However, to defend those rights, we can't begin by flouting the very document that inspires that fight in the first place: the Constitution." CW: Levy's piece surely will upset fellow libertarian Li'l Randy.

Craig Whitlock & Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: "Al-Qaeda's leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones, hoping to exploit the technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses against the terrorist network, according to top-secret U.S. intelligence documents."

News Ledes

Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Ariel Castro, the man sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for the abductions of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, is dead. Castro was found hanging in his cell at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, south of Columbus, said ... a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction." ...

... AP: Castro "is believed to have committed suicide, a prison official said."

AP: "The family of World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg will ask President Barack Obama for help in their quest to find out what happened to the Swedish diplomat who vanished after being arrested by Soviet forces in 1945. Wallenberg's niece, Marie Dupuy, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the family will present a letter to Obama at a memorial ceremony for Wallenberg that the president is set to attend Wednesday in Stockholm."