Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) blasted the Obama administration’s Syria policy saying it could pose a terrorist threat to the United States, Roll Call reports.

Said McCain: “If you don’t care about Syria, my dear listeners, if you don’t care about Syria, it’s becoming a regional conflict. It’s spread to Lebanon. It’s spread to Turkey. It’s spread to Jordan. It is spreading throughout the region, and sooner or later it will affect the United States of America if you allow a place to become a base for al-Qaeda.”

He added: “I have never seen anything like this in my life. I thought Jimmy Carter was bad, but he pales in comparison to this president in my view.”

Boston Red Sox pitchers Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa met with U.S.
Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on Tuesday during a tour to share
the 2013 World Series trophy with baseball fans in the country, AP reports.

Just for Red Sox fans: Check out Sox Wire for the latest news on the World Champions.

New York Times: “As a candidate for the French presidency in 2012, François Hollande promised to be more boring spouse than flamboyant seducer… Twenty months into his presidency, Mr. Hollande’s campaign pledge is faring even less well than the unemployment-cursed French economy.”

“Caught in a clandestine affair that is more bedroom farce than Shakespearean drama — a beautiful actress, a scorned woman at home, surreptitious comings and goings on a most unpresidential scooter — Mr. Hollande is testing the limits of France’s tolerance for private indiscretion and leaving himself vulnerable to ridicule.”

“The episode has revealed a colder, more politically calculating side to Mr. Hollande, familiar to those around him but largely hidden from public view. His judgment, not least about his personal security, has been called into question.”

“One can feel calm and at ease. Just leave kids alone, please.”

— Russian President Vladimir Putin, quoted by the Washington Post, when asked about his country’s attitude towards gays at the Olympic Games.

Topic A: Defense points out that the United States is still at war in Iraq — at least on paper.

“The French president’s burgeoning sex scandal is emerging as a diplomatic headache for the White House amid uncertainty as to whom exactly François Hollande plans to bring to next month’s state dinner,” The Hill reports.

“House leaders are planning to take up Senate legislation to enact new sanctions against Iran, a surprise move that would intensify a standoff between the White House and Congress in the wake of progress this past weekend in President Obama’s diplomatic drive with Tehran,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Obama has said he would veto any new Iran sanctions Congress sends to his desk while the U.S. and other world powers negotiate a long-term deal to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program, a process underway after a six-month interim deal was finalized Sunday.”

Greg Sargent: “Where are all the Senate Democrats on the bill to impose sanctions on
Iran that is being pushed by Senators Robert Menendez and Chuck Schumer?
How many of them are really prepared to support this bill, and how many
oppose it? By my count, more than half the Democratic caucus have been
mum on where they stand.”

“An international media frenzy over reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s uncle had been executed by throwing him to a pack of dogs appears to have originated as satire on a Chinese microblogging website,” Reuters reports.

“The story, which spread like wildfire after it was picked up by a Hong Kong-based newspaper, has created an image that Pyongyang’s young ruler is even more brutal and unpredictable than previously believed.”

Straits Times: “According to the report, unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, Jang was stripped naked and thrown into a cage, along with his five closest aides. Then 120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called ‘quan jue’, or execution by dogs.”

“The report said the entire process lasted for an hour, with Mr Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader in North Korea, supervising it along with 300 senior officials.”

Haaretz: “Israel will pay for abortions for women aged 20 to 33 regardless of circumstance starting next year, health officials said Monday, adding that they hope to make eligibilty for state funding universal in the future.”

A new CNN/ORC poll finds that just 17% of Americans support the war in Afghanistan — with 82% opposed — making it the the most unpopular war in U.S. history.

Said pollster Keating Holland: “Opposition to the Iraq war never got higher than 69% in CNN polling while U.S. troops were in that country, and while the Vietnam War was in progress, no more than six in 10 ever told Gallup’s interviewers that war was a mistake.”

The New York Times reports that recent decisions by Vladimir Putin show his “singular ability not only to wield executive power but also to bend the legislative and judicial branches of government to his will, and to exert heavy control over the Russian news media.”

“As he prepares to begin his 15th year as Russia’s paramount political leader, Mr. Putin’s sweeping authority gives him far more leverage than his counterparts in the West to influence the course of events and, at times, to set the agenda in world affairs.”

“Uganda’s parliament has passed a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts to include life imprisonment in some cases,” the BBC reports.

“The anti-homosexuality bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence not to report gay people.”

“In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down as unconstitutional the entire scheme of criminal laws against the buying and selling of sex by prostitutes, saying it endangers the lives and security of vulnerable sex workers,” the Toronto Star reports.

“However, the country’s top court has given Parliament a one-year grace period to redraft a legislative scheme that could pass constitutional muster.”

First Read notes that appointing Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) as ambassador to China “isn’t the first time the Obama White House has used the China ambassadorship for political reasons.”

“Remember, Obama’s first ambassador there was then-Utah Gov. John Huntsman (R), whom the president’s political team back in 2009 viewed as a potential threat in a 2012 general election. (Huntsman ran for president anyway, but having worked for Obama wasn’t seen as a positive by GOP primary voters.) And after Huntsman (who spoke Mandarin) and Gary Locke (a Chinese American), Baucus might seem like a curious choice for U.S. ambassador to China, arguably one of the most crucial relationships to the U.S. economy in particular. But don’t forget he’s been a powerful U.S. senator for years who has some experience when the issue of Most Favored Nation status for China was being shepherded through the Senate.”

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that when President Obama arrived at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg, South Africa Tuesday, he stepped into an atmosphere so chaotic, disorganized, and unsafe that under any other circumstances the White House and Secret Service might well have insisted the president not appear,” Byron York reports.

“FNB Stadium, where the memorial was held, seats 95,000 people. Even with a steady rain and thousands of empty seats in uncovered areas, there were tens of thousands of people in the area with the president. It appears most of them got in without going through any security.”

“Every sentence of the decision served as sledge-hammer blow brought down by our angry service personnel and people on the head of Jang, an anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster.”

— Korean Central News Agency statement announcing the execution of Jang Song, the uncle of North Korean leader King Jung Un.

Jon Stewart comments on President Obama’s handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro.

First Read: “But here’s probably the best way to view it: Would you greet (or shake hands with) an estranged family member at a memorial service for a loved one? Or do you go out of your way to snub that person? In other words, is that day about you and your conflict? Or about that loved one who’s being memorialized lying in a casket?”

[Read more…]