The Commentariat -- Sept. 13, 2013

Obama 2.0. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama has chosen Jeffrey D. Zients, an entrepreneur who twice was the president's acting budget director and a past candidate for two cabinet positions, to succeed Gene B. Sperling as the chief White House economic adviser.The shift, which was confirmed by several administration officials and will be announced on Friday, does not portend change in the president's economic agenda."

Kim Hjelmgaard of USA Today: "The White House is disputing a Japanese newspaper's report that former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers will be named the next chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Obama. The Nikkei newspaper, which did not publicly name its sourcing for its story, said Obama was "set to" name Summers to the position, possibly as early as next week." ...

... ** Michael Hirsh of the National Journal makes the case against Summers. If you don't have time to read it today, read it tomorrow. Hirsh essentially calls Summers a fuck-up, a liar & an arrogant SOB. And he gives examples. Hirsh's piece is the NJ's cover story.

Adam Entous, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials." ...

... Robert Worth of the New York Times: "In exchange for relinquishing his chemical arsenal, [Syrian President] Assad said Thursday, he will require that the United States stop arming the Syrian opposition.... Mr. Assad outlined his demands on Thursday...."

Michael Gordon & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "Starting a second day of negotiations on Syria's chemical weapons, Secretary of State John Kerry had a three-way meeting Friday morning at the Palais de Nations here with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy on the Syria issue." ...

... Gordon & Myers of the Times (published yesterday): "Secretary of State John Kerry and a team of American arms control experts began talks with Russian counterparts Thursday on a plan to secure and dispose of Syria chemical arsenal, and he set an early test for the Syrian leader by insisting on quick disclosure of the weapons as the country announced it had joined a treaty banning their use." ...

     ... The Washington Post story, by Ann Gearan & Karen DeYoung, is here. The Guardian's report, by Paul Lewis & Dan Roberts, is here. ...

... Al Jazeera America: "The United Nations said Thursday that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has signed a legal document confirming that his government will comply with an international ban on chemical weapons. But the announcement came just hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had rejected Assad's earlier pledge to sign the agreement and begin submitting data on his chemical weapons one month later, in keeping with the usual practice under the pact. Kerry said the usual rules cannot apply to the current situation, and he demanded speedier compliance." ...

... Margaret Sullivan, the Times' public editor, explains how the Times received & published Putin's op-ed. ...

... Max Fisher of the Washington Post annotates & fact-checks Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed, linked in yesterday Commentariat. Here's one entry: "... what rankles many analysts about this paragraph is that it ignores Putin's own role in enabling the already quite awful violence, as well as the extremism it's inspired. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's regime has killed so freely and so wantonly in part because it knows Putin will protect it from international action. Putin has also been supplying Assad with heavy weapons. It's a bit rich for him to decry violence or outside involvement at this point." ...

... Political scientist Erica Chenowith does the same in the Monkey Cage. ...

... J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "Conservative writers are very upset that The New York Times published an op-ed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.... 'It looks like those pro-Assad Syrians didn't need to hack the New York Times website after all,' National Review columnist Charles C.W. Cooke tweeted. 'They could have just asked nicely.' Commentary editor John Podhoretz mused this morning: 'So it's LITERALLY Pravda-on-the-Hudson.' ... In fact, Putin has placed op-eds in nearly every major U.S. paper, including the right-leaning Wall Street Journal and Washington Times." ...

... Edward-Issac Dovere of Politico: "Vladimir Putin got his op-ed on Syria in the New York Times. Now Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) thinks it's only fair for a Russian daily newspaper to run his response. The DCCC chair on Thursday submitted a rebuttal article to Kommersant, a major Russian magazine, that he's calling 'An Open Letter to the People of Russia,' to explain the situation he and other members of Congress are in as they weigh whether to authorize the military strike which Putin argued in the Times should only happen with Security Council approval -- which Russia would be able to veto." No word yet on whether or not Kommersant will run Israel's letter. Israel's full letter is here. ...

... CW: I'm flummoxed by the apparent naivete of certain writers who are far more expert on Russia than am I. Take, ferinstance, Steven Myers, the New York Times' Moscow bureau chief, who writes that Putin has "boxed in" President Obama. Or Russia specialist & Moscow-born Julia Ioffe of the New Republic, who concludes, "... if you're keeping score this week, here's the tally: Putin 2, Obama 0." Really? The U.S. begs Russia for a year to do something it doesn't want to do. So the U.S. threatens to use force. And Russia says, "Well, okay then, have it your way." (Meanwhile, as of Monday this week, Assad wouldn't even acknowledge that he possessed chemical weapons & his government was one of the few holdouts refusing to sign the international treaty banning the use of chemical weapons; as of Thursday afternoon, his regime acknowledge possession of the chemicals & Assad signed the treaty.) You're not seeing Putin outsmarting or dominating Obama. You're seeing the way a strongman blinks. It's true that Putin's blink may be a feint, but even if it is, it's a welcome one because Assad has desisted from gassing Syrians & won't likely embarrass his benefactor Putin by doing so again in the near future. How can "experts" be so blind to a blink? ...

... Here's why Stewart & Colbert are important -- they highlight ignorance & hypocrisy that gets past people who don't read stuff. Contributor Barbarossa links to Colbert's piece -- which ran Monday -- on "Hypothetical Reagan":

... National Memo: "The reality is the United States didn't even impose sanctions on Iraq -- likely because the Reagan administration sold Hussein chemical weapons throughout the 1980s as part of an alliance to prop up Iraq against Iran. But that was the real Reagan -- not hypothetical, contemporary Super Reagan, who is headed to Syria right now on his raptor."

** Paul Krugman: "... whatever is causing the growing concentration of income at the top, the effect of that concentration is to undermine all the values that define America. Year by year, we're diverging from our ideals. Inherited privilege is crowding out equality of opportunity; the power of money is crowding out effective democracy."

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times on the Koch brothers little campaign-money-laundering scam, Freedom Partners. Oh, what a surprise: it's a tax dodge for many of the "partners." CW: The real scandal: it's all legal. Maybe. "The center faces an inquiry by California election officials over allegations that it broke disclosure rules in funneling millions of dollars into state ballot initiatives in 2012." And here's a funny thing: Court stenographers Jim Vanderhei & Mike Allen of Politico, who first reported on Freedom Partners (linked in yesterday's Commentariat), didn't mention the tax dodge part.

I had to be very candid with [John Boehner] and I told him directly, all these things they're doing on Obamacare are just a waste of their time. Their direction is the direction toward shutting down the government. I like John Boehner. I do feel sorry for him. -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ...

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "In meetings with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on Thursday after a session with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday, Mr. Boehner sought a resumption of negotiations that could keep the government running and yield a deficit-reduction deal that would persuade recalcitrant conservatives to raise the government's borrowing limit.... But a bloc of 43 House Republicans undercut the speaker's deficit-reduction focus, introducing yearlong funding legislation that would increase Pentagon and veterans spending and delay President Obama's health care law for a year -- most likely adding to the budget deficit.... Mr. Lew and Congressional Democrats held firm that they would no longer negotiate on raising the debt ceiling.... And they made it clear to the speaker that they would never accept Republican demands to repeal, defund or delay Mr. Obama's signature health care law." ...

... Today's Crime Spree Brought to You by the GOP. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "After months of agonizing about how to deal with the effects of government spending cuts, senior F.B.I. officials in Washington have decided how they will reduce the bureau's spending: they will shut down its headquarters and offices across the country for roughly 10 weekdays over the next year. The F.B.I.'s plans mean that on those days, the bureau will have only a skeleton crew on hand, which raises questions about how effectively it can respond to crime."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "More than 100 women were arrested on Capitol Hill on Thursday after they blocked a busy intersection to press the House of Representatives to move on immigration legislation in a protest that rallied national women's groups to the cause."

Another Wingnut Governor Sees the $$$. Karen Shuey of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Intelligencer Journal: "Gov. Tom Corbett intends to announce he will accept federal funds to expand medical coverage to an estimated 682,000 more Pennsylvanians in a Medicaid-like program, according to sources close to the governor. The Republican was among a small group of governors resisting calls to expand the federal-state health entitlement for the poor under the Affordable Care Act." ...

... Josh Barro of Business Insider: "Corbett, who faces his own uphill battle for re-election, seems to understand that he can't afford to take the blame for needless hospital closures next year. The remaining question is whether Republicans in the state House of Representatives will allow him to move to safer political ground."

Obama 2.0. Christine Haughney of the New York Times: "Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time magazine, is leaving to become under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department, according to people with knowledge of the appointment."

Local News

Kate Taylor & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: New York City "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Friday morning that he had decided not to make an endorsement in the general election for mayor, a surprise announcement in a campaign that has become something of a referendum on his legacy."

Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Police Chief Steve Bracknell, who is responsible for the Florida town where George Zimmerman resides, agreed in a series of emails that Zimmerman is a 'ticking time bomb' and another 'Sandy Hook' waiting to happen." CW: look for Zimmerman to file a defamation-of-character suit on this one. Not sure who will represent him since his trial lawyer quit -- um, except for representing him in a defamation suit against NBC.

News Lede

New York Times: "The investigation into what sparked a devastating fire that destroyed dozens of businesses along one of the most famous boardwalks on the Jersey Shore has not yet determined a cause, Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday." The New Jersey Star-Ledger has extensive coverage of fire-related stories here.

The Commentariat -- Sept. 12, 2013

Michael Gordon & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry and a team of American arms control experts arrived [in Geneva] Thursday to begin talks with their Russian counterparts on a plan to secure and dispose of Syria's chemical weapons. American officials said they were planning a series of early tests to determine if the Russian government, and more importantly President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, were serious about accepting international control of Syria's huge chemical arsenal." ...

... Ernesto Londoño & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear -- a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria's civil war." ...

... Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "As the United States and Russia searched for a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Syria's chemical weapons, a four-person United Nations rights panel presented detailed evidence on Wednesday of what it said were war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by pro-government forces and, to a lesser extent, rebels in the 30-month-old conflict." ...

... Vladimir Putin in the New York Times: "The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders." ...

     ... Steve M. of NMMNB: Putin alienates the wingnuts, potentially his strongest U.S. allies!

... New York Times Editors: "... the diplomacy could provide more of an immediate deterrent against further chemical attacks than the threat of an attack, and far more of a deterrent in the longer run. Russia will continue to make seemingly unreasonable demands until a deal is finally signed and is unlikely to admit that the Syrian regime carried out the gas attack. But Congress and Mr. Obama should be careful about setting hard deadlines or drawing any more red lines. At least Syria has admitted that it has chemical weapons, for the first time ever; Mr. Putin has acknowledged to the world that there must be limits on the blank checks he was writing his client state; and Russia and the United States are working toward a common strategic goal for the first time in a very long time." ...

... President Jimmy Carter, in a Washington Post op-ed: "A military strike by the United States is undesirable and will become unnecessary if this alternative [Russian] proposal is strongly supported by the U.N. Security Council.... The main goals of condemning the use of these outlawed weapons and preventing their further use can still be realized by concerted international action." ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "... the mere flexing of military power worked -- initially and tentatively. And while it seems that neither Congress nor the public has any appetite for cruise missile strikes on Syria, it will be critical to keep the military option alive in the coming weeks or Russia and Syria will play us like a yo-yo." ...

... Jon Stewart on Fox "News"'s coverage of the proposal to relieve Syria of its chemical weapons:

     ... CW: As we've discovered, it isn't only Fox "News" that sees the possibility of a peaceful resolution as a weakening of U.S. strength or a presidential blunder.

Bibi Is Reading Your E-Mails. Glenn Greenwald: "The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals. Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis."

Rich People Spend Big to Make You Stupid. Mike Allen & Jim Vandehei of Politico: "An Arlington, Va.-based conservative group, whose existence until now was unknown to almost everyone in politics, raised and spent $250 million in 2012 to shape political and policy debate nationwide. The group, Freedom Partners, and its president, Marc Short, serve as an outlet for the ideas and funds of the mysterious Koch brothers, cutting checks as large as $63 million to groups promoting conservative causes, according to an IRS document to be filed shortly." CW: Allen & Vandehei got this scoop, no doubt, because their wingnut sourcing is very, very good.

More Stupid GOP Tricks. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Facing another revolt by the House's most ardent conservatives, Republican leaders scrapped a vote this week on legislation that would keep the federal government financed through mid-December while ending financing for President Obama's health care law. The leaders say they will bring the measure up next week, but with just a handful of legislative days left until a government shutdown, Republicans are in a squeeze. Democrats are uniting in opposition to the bill, not only because of the resolution to starve the Affordable Care Act, but also because the level of financing for the government would reflect the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration." ...

... Greg Sargent: "At some point, House GOP leaders will have to pass an important bill with a lot of Democratic support -- stiff-arming the Tea Party in the process. GOP leaders are trying to defer that moment for as long as possible, but there's just no clear way around it."

... Brian Beutler of Salon: House "conservatives are poised -- once again! -- to align with progressives in temporarily handing control of the House of Representatives over to Nancy Pelosi, and protecting the poor from deep government spending cuts." ...

... CW: there are quite a few posts about the internecine struggles among House Republicans. Most of them get into the weeds, because it's all weeds. Matt Fuller of Roll Call notes that the House leadership is pissed at groups like their erstwhile friends at the Club for Growth who insist on attaching defund-ObamaCare language to every bill. James Downie of the Washington Post observes that House Republicans are turning on Senate Republicans for refusing to mount a series of filibusters with the objective of defunding ObamaCare. Ed Kilgore: "... at some point, 'the base' of the Republican Party needs to learn that sticking with The Crazy to and beyond the gates of delirium won't get them everything they want in life...." ...

     ... Update: To add to the GOP disarray, Senate Republicans are "screwing" the House Republican leadership. Burgess Everett of Politico: "[Ted] Cruz [R-Texas] and [Mike] Lee [R-Utah] have resisted the House approach because the Democratic-controlled Senate would surely vote to keep the government funded and easily defeat the Obamacare defunding component. Cruz called the approach 'procedural chicanery' and asserted that the House GOP would be 'complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare' if it supported the maneuver." ...

More Stupider GOP Tricks. "Is Nothing Sacred?" Dana Milbank: "Rather than join in the bipartisan ceremonies marking the 12th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, [conservatives] rallied on the West Lawn of the Capitol, carrying signs that said 'Impeach Obama' and, over a cartoon of the president trampling Uncle Sam, 'Americans Don't Support Terrorists or Their Minions.' On the other side of the Capitol, conservative leaders joined the eccentric Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) at what was supposed to be a 'memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and 2012.' But the 3,000 who perished in 2001 got just a few passing references at the 35-minute event. The 'primary purpose' of the gathering, in the words of organizer Jerry Boykin, a retired Army general, was to remember the four men who were killed in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.... More to the point, the conservatives had assembled to blame the Obama administration for the deaths and to demand further investigation of the resulting 'scandal.' ... Some of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party joined in marring the memorials with Benghazi politics," including John Boehner, Darell Issa & Marco Rubio. ...

... Where's the Outrage? Dave Weigel of Slate provides this picture of the big Benghazi protest. Not exactly a cast of thousands. Though the so-called organizers predicted 3,000 protesters, Weigel's estimate was that only about 100 of the faithful showed up:

Dave Jamieson of the Huffington Post: "After extending health care coverage to many of its part-time employees for years, Trader Joe's has told workers who log fewer than 30 hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year, according to a confidential memo from the grocer's chief executive. In the memo to staff dated Aug. 30, Trader Joe's CEO Dan Bane said the company will cut part-timers a check for $500 in January and help guide them toward finding a new plan under the Affordable Care Act. The company will continue to offer health coverage to workers who carry 30 hours or more on average."

Ann Marimow & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The D.C. businessman at the center of an ongoing city corruption investigation secretly spent more than a half-million dollars on get-out-the-vote efforts for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.... Jeffrey E. Thompson, a former city contractor who allegedly financed a secret campaign for then-mayoral candidate Vincent C. Gray (D) in 2010, financed an independent effort to reach urban voters on behalf of Clinton in Texas and at least three other states during the 2008 Democratic primaries.... A search of federal campaign records found no evidence that Thompson or White disclosed the alleged expenditures or activities..., as required by campaign finance laws.... A senior official on Clinton's 2008 campaign said no one in the campaign's senior leadership or with budget-making authority knew about White's independent canvassing campaign. Other senior officials said they had never heard of White."

Professor Petraeus' First Day of Classes. Brian Jones of Business Insider: "A video recently posted to YouTube shows the former director of the CIA and retired Army general [David Petraeus] being followed down the street on his way to his first class by a small, but passionate group of students. It's hard to make out a lot of what they're saying, but there's a lot of 'war criminal!' And a general sense that they don't like him very much." Includes video. CW: All this aggravation for a $1/class. Maybe CUNY isn't the best venue for Prof. P.

Anna Palmer & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will meet with the top four House Republicans next week in Washington. The high tech CEO's visit comes as Facebook is facing ongoing scrutiny over privacy concerns and Internet safety."

Local News

David Chen, et al., of the New York Times: "New York City’s Democratic power brokers moved swiftly on Wednesday to prevent a combative sequel to the party's primary for mayor, as union officials and party leaders rallied around the front-runner, Bill de Blasio, and urged the second-place finisher, William C. Thompson Jr. to end his quest for a runoff election.... With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. de Blasio had won 40.3 percent of the vote, just over the 40 percent required by law to avoid a runoff, but there were more than 16,000 paper ballots, some still arriving by mail, that could push Mr. de Blasio below that threshold when they are counted next week." ...

... Gail Collins on lessons from the New York City elections. Here's the "racist" ad that irked Mike Bloomberg:

     ... CW: BTW, I disagree with Collins about Mark Sanford. Yeah, he's a narcissistic jerk, but his full-blown love affair with What's-Her-Name, whom he plans to marry, does not, in my book, equate with Weiner's sexting or Spitzer's hooking. I fault Sanford for dereliction of duty, but not for falling for somebody-not-his-wife.

Vivan Yee of the New York Times: "Charles J. Hynes, the district attorney who was Brooklyn's most powerful political figure and top law enforcement officer for more than 23 years..., accepted a stunning defeat as voters swept a much younger man [Kenneth Thompson, 47] into his place, and became the first district attorney in the city to lose a re-election bid since 1955."

Stupid Bigot (Admittedly Redundant) Tricks. Tamara Lush of the AP: " A Florida pastor was arrested Wednesday as he drove a pickup truck towing a large barbecue-style grill filled with kerosene-soaked Qurans to a park, where the pastor had said he was planning to burn 2,998 of the Muslim holy books -- one for every victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Sheriff's deputies in Polk County, Fla., arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, and his associate pastor, Marvin Sapp Jr., 44, each on a felony charge of unlawful conveyance of fuel."

Stupid Tricks, Right & Left

Mackenzie Weinger & Kate Brannen of Politico: Elizabeth O'Bagy, "the Syria researcher whose Wall Street Journal op-ed piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain during congressional hearings about the use of force, has been fired from the [neoconservative] Institute for the Study of War for lying about having a Ph.D., the group announced on Wednesday.... According to [Kimberly] Kagan, [the founder of ISW,] O'Bagy in May led her to believe she had successfully defended her dissertation when she had actually failed her defense. The [WSJ] piece had also come under fire for misrepresenting her affiliations. Originally the op-ed only listed O'Bagy, 26, as only 'a senior analyst' at the ISW, later adding a clarification that disclosed her connection to a Syrian rebel advocacy group." ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress makes the case that O'Bagy was never in a Ph.D. program.

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Public Policy Polling (PPP) sparked controversy Wednesday after the left-leaning firm declined to release a survey it conducted last weekend that accurately forecasted the successful recall of a Democratic state senator from Colorado. The survey PPP conducted, but did not release, showed Colorado District 3 Sen. Angela Giron (D) would be recalled by a 54 percent to 42 percent margin. 'In a district that Barack Obama won by almost 20 points I figured there was no way that could be right and made a rare decision not to release the poll,' Director Tom Jensen wrote in a post on the firm's website. 'It turns out we should have had more faith in our numbers because she was indeed recalled by 12 points.'"

News Ledes

AP: "NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has left the solar system, boldly going where no machine has gone before. Thirty-six years after it rocketed away from Earth, the plutonium-powered spacecraft has escaped the sun's influence and is now cruising 11 1/2 billion miles away in interstellar space.... just in case it encounters intelligent life out there, it is carrying a gold-plated, 1970s-era phonograph record with multicultural greetings from Earth, photos and songs, including Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode,' along with Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Louis Armstrong."

New York Times: "A Jersey Shore boardwalk barely rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy was ravaged by fire on Thursday, as flames that began in an ice cream shop quickly engulfed businesses along a stretch of beach in two towns."

AFP: "Russia said on Thursday that North Korea was apparently conducting work on a nuclear reactor, warning that the ageing facility was in such a 'nightmarish state' it could cause a disaster."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 11, 2013

... The New York Times has the transcript of the speech. ...

... Short Version. Erin McClam (a new McDonald's sandwich??) of NBC News recaps the President's speech & related news. ...

... Over there on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell has nothing but bad stuff to say about President Obama & any deal that might be reached with Syria. Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Chris Matthews. Ed Schultz & Al Sharpton contradicted her -- but mostly not till Mitchell moved on to spread her shit on NBC News. ...

... Maureen Dowd makes Andrea Mitchell sound like an Obama groupie, by comparison. Dowd trashes Obama, Kerry & any other Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid) who come to mind. ...

... George Packer of the New Yorker is tough, too, but in a more measured & thoughtful way: "... the Administration has had the good fortune to stumble into diplomacy, randomly sprung from the trap it set for itself. I'd say the chances of missile strikes are now less than one in ten. The sudden turn of events has already led the Syrian government to reverse its longstanding policy of denying that it possesses chemical weapons, a situation that would have Monty Python-like possibilities if not for the daily horrors. That move suggests the better possibilities of diplomacy." ...

... John Dickerson of Slate is critical but fair: "The best new argument the president has for his Syria policy is that the threat appears to be working. The outlines of the Syrian offer to give up chemical weapons will become clear soon enough and we'll all learn whether this pause was a bluff or a genuine breakthrough. If it's the latter, then what looked like a confusing speech in the middle of a fishtailing policy will mark the moment when Obama's hard line started to pay off. If it's just a bluff, then the president will again need that Congressional vote, and his remarks from tonight will be long in the distance." ...

... Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States will begin working with its allies at the United Nations to explore the viability of a Russian plan to avert military action against Syria by having the international community take control of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile, a senior White House official said on Tuesday. The decision to work through the United Nations came after President Obama spoke Tuesday morning with President François Hollande of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, the White House official said." ...

... Stacy Meichtry, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "A nearly immediate impasse over a United Nations resolution on removing Syria's chemical weapons sent American, British and French diplomats into a huddle on Tuesday, as they sought to craft a version stern enough to ensure Syrian compliance without spurring a Russian veto. Russia rejected France's initial demand for muscular wording aimed at forcing Syria to hand over the weapons on a deadline and under the threat of force. Moscow canceled a meeting it had called at the Security Council and set the stage for a possible diplomatic standoff." ...

... RT: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Syria's chemical arms handover will only work if the US and its allies renounce the use of force against Damascus.... Putin confirmed that he and President Barack Obama had 'indeed discussed' such a possibility on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg last week. It was agreed, Putin said, 'to instruct Secretary of State [John Kerry] and Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] to work together and see if they can achieve some progress in this regard.'" ...

I had some conversations about this [Russian proposal] with my counterpart from Russia last week. President Putin raised the issue with President Obama at St. Petersburg. President Obama directed us to try to continue to talk and see if it is possible. So it is not something that -- you know, suddenly emerged, though it did publicly. But it cannot be allowed to be a delay.... I didn't misspeak. I was asked about it. I responded because I was asked. -- Secretary of State John Kerry, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday ...

... Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed on how the administration changed its story about Kerry's remark on Monday re: the Russian proposal. CW: I think if you can read diplomatese, you'll see that the statements about the statement (see, I can even write it!) are not inconsistent. ...

... The Times has a liveblog of events surrounding the Syrian crisis. The Washington Post's liveblog is here. ...

... Ezra Klein: "The White House may really be about to win on Syria.... If Assad is willing to sign the [chemical weapons convention] treaty and stop using chemical weapons [as the AP has tweeted], they should declare victory. It's a better outcome than they could have hoped for. And they might get it without firing a single shot." ...

... Charles Pierce on Senators' reactions to a visit from President Obama. He writes a special tribute to Li'l Randy: "Nothing about the swift turn of events was stranger, though, than hearing Senator Aqua Buddha's enthusiastic support of the U.N., an organization that his pappy, Crazy Uncle Liberty (!), has looked upon as a Trojan Horse of UnFreedom for 30 years. 'There's also a valid argument to be made in some of us who were working very hard to delay the bombing, we've had a chance to get to diplomacy,' said Rand Paul of Kentucky." ...

... Here's the Post's most recent update on where members of Congress stand on the vote to authorize the use of force against Syria.

** A Gilded Age of Our Own. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "An updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty shows that the top 1 percent of earners took more than one-fifth of the country's total income in 2012, one of the highest levels recorded in the century that the government has collected the relevant data. The top 10 percent of earners took more than half of all income. That is the highest recorded level ever. The figures underscore that even after the recession the country remains in a kind of new Gilded Age, with income as concentrated as it was in the years that preceded the Great Depression, if not more so."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "National Security Agency personnel regularly searched call tracking data using thousands of numbers that had not been vetted in accordance with court-ordered procedures, according to previously secret legal filings and court opinions released by the Obama administration Tuesday. The agency also falsely certified to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that analysts and technicians were complying with the court's insistence that searches only be done with numbers that had a 'reasonable, articulable suspicion' of terrorism, according to a senior intelligence official who briefed reporters prior to release of the documents." ...

     ... The Guardian story, by Spencer Ackerman, is here. "... documents, mostly from 2009 and declassified Tuesday, describe what Walton said were 'thousands' of American phone numbers improperly accessed by government counterterrorism analysts.... They also indicate that US government officials, including NSA director Keith Alexander, gave misleading statements to the court about how they carried out that surveillance." ...

     ... Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The agency uses orders from the intelligence court to compel phone companies to turn over records of numbers called and the time and duration of each call.... Since [Edward] Snowden disclosed the program, the agency has said that ... it makes only a few hundred queries in the database each year, when it has 'reasonable, articulable suspicion' that a telephone number is connected to terrorism. But the new documents show that the agency also compares each day's phone call data as it arrives with an 'alert list' of thousands of domestic and foreign phone numbers that it has identified as possibly linked to terrorism. The agency told the court that all the numbers on the alert list had met the legal standard of suspicion, but that was false. In fact, only about 10 percent of 17,800 phone numbers on the alert list in 2009 had met that test, a senior intelligence official said." ...

     ... CW: It's worth emphasizing that these documents were not voluntarily released as a result of President Obama's enlightened "transparency" standards. As Ackerman reports, "The documents ... came after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully sued the FBI for more disclosure about the phone records collection through the Freedom of Information Act. A federal court in August ordered an initial round of disclosure to occur Tuesday." Not only does the public have a need to know when a government agency breaks the law, the agency itself will not function within the law if its lawbreaking is never subjected to public scrutiny.

Local News

David Halbfinger & David Chen of the New York Times: "Bill de Blasio, whose campaign for mayor of New York tapped into a city's deepening unease with income inequality and aggressive police practices, captured far more votes than any of his rivals in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. But as Mr. de Blasio, an activist-turned-operative and now the city's public advocate, celebrated a remarkable come-from-behind surge, it was not clear if he had won the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff election on Oct. 1 with William C. Thompson Jr., who finished second. At night's end, he had won just over 40 percent of the ballots counted; thousands of paper ballots had yet to be tallied, which could take days.... The winner of the unusually spirited Republican contest was Joseph J. Lhota, a no-nonsense former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He defeated John A. Catsimatidis, a voluble billionaire who ran an often whimsical campaign." ...

... Mara Gay of the Daily News adds a bizarre coda to election night in her report on Sydney Leathers -- Anthony Weiner's ex-sexting partner -- who attempted to crash Weiner's "victory" party. Article includes multiple mammograms; if she ever grows up, Leathers will be tremendously embarrassed by her youthful indiscretion. ...

... Kate Taylor of the New York Times: "Eliot Spitzer lost a bid for political redemption on Tuesday as he was defeated in the Democratic primary for New York City comptroller by the current Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. With 97 percent of the precincts reporting early Wednesday, Mr. Stringer was ahead 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent." ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York on "the dashed dreams of President Bloomberg.... Bloombergism is the sort of thing the Constitution was designed to prevent." A highly readable critique of Bloomberg's arrogance & how he decided to translate it into public policy, the public itself be damned.

** Lynn Bartels, et al., of the Denver Post: "An epic national debate over gun rights in Colorado on Tuesday saw two Democratic state senators ousted for their support for stricter laws, a 'ready, aim, fired' message intended to stop other politicians for pushing for firearms restrictions. Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron will be replaced in office with Republican candidates who petitioned onto the recall ballot."

John Eligon of the New York Times: "As a Democrat facing a State Legislature with veto-proof Republican majorities, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri has not claimed big victories lately. So when he began stumping the state against a deep Republican tax cut that he had vetoed, he might have seemed to be on a political fool's errand. But over the summer, Mr. Nixon has turned the debate away from the Republican argument that lower taxes bring jobs and recast the tax cut as one that would hurt education and mental health services. The state's school boards have rallied to his side. More than 100 of them have passed resolutions supporting the veto. And with a veto session set to begin on Wednesday, it is the supporters of the tax cut who are now pessimistic."

Stupid News

Julian Pecquet of the Hill: "Thousands of demonstrators are expected to descend on the Capitol on Wednesday to mark the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans." CW: I can't figure out who these thousands are demonstrators are. Guess I should watch Fox "News."

Matt Gutman & Colleen Curry of ABC News: Mark O'Mara, the lawyer who represented George Zimmerman in his murder trial, says he will not represent him in future matters "even as police say that Zimmerman or his wife could face charges over Monday's domestic dispute.... O'Mara appeared to struggle with his anger at his client during Monday's incident in which he went to Zimmerman's house while police were still there. During a press conference later, O'Mara was asked if he had any advice for Zimmerman, and he answered, 'Pay me.' ... During the 911 call, [Shellie] Zimmerman reported that George Zimmerman had a gun on him, a claim that police later debunked, saying there was no gun found at the scene and that no one, including Shellie Zimmerman, said they had seen a weapon during the argument." ...

... Cord Jefferson of Gawker: "O'Mara isn't severing all of his ties with his reviled client, of course, because there's still some money to be squeezed from the circus show that is George Zimmerman's life. The lawyer, who now moonlights as a CNN legal analyst, will still serve as Zimmerman's counsel in a defamation suit against NBC." ...

... Karoli of Crooks & Liars is not convinced that George Zimmerman didn't have a gun.

News Ledes

AP: " Sept. 11 victims' loved ones will gather at ground zero to commemorate the attacks' anniversary with the reading of names, moments of silence and serene music that have become tradition."

AFP: "A powerful blast caused serious damage to a foreign ministry building in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Wednesday, witnesses said. The explosion comes on the first anniversary of an attack by militants on the United States consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans, including the ambassador."