Who would have ever guessed that Vladimir Putin would pull Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire? Nothing else could have saved Obama from having Congress deny him the green light to attack Syria.

Ironically, even though I opposed hitting Syria unless it was going to be with a nuke, for staking out a position and sticking to it in spite of massive opposition in his own party, I rather admired Obama. It was the first time I can recall that he did anything that he knew would upset his base.

For one thing, according to a straw poll, 42 of the 44 members of the Congressional Black Caucus intended to vote against a military strike. For another, when he was rattling his little saber, it forced his peacenik chums in Hollywood to bite their tongues and remain silent, thus confirming their hypocrisy once again.

The same people – Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Barbra Streisand, Jessica Lange, Janeane Garofalo, George Clooney, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Bono and Michael Moore – who spent most of the past decade reviling George Bush as a fascist and comparing him to Hitler for attacking Iraq, suddenly went missing. The strongest objection was voiced by Ed Asner, who limited his condemnation to “He’s no longer my Galahad.”

Question: What is the difference between a Congress on vacation and one hard at work? Answer: It was a trick question. There is no such thing as a Congress hard at work. If there were, wouldn’t Lois Lerner be back trying to explain who ordered the IRS to target conservatives? Wouldn’t people from the State Department be called on the carpet to explain why Ambassador Stevens and the other three Americans weren’t given the protection they requested and to rat out whoever told Susan Rice to tell lies about a stupid video? And how is it that Hillary (“What difference does it make?”) Clinton, now a private citizen, hasn’t been subpoenaed to come clean on her role in the tragedy and the cover-up?

Speaking of Benghazi, Obama swore he would round up and punish the perpetrators of the massacre, and yet here it is a year later, and the only person who has been punished is the schmuck who produced the video. In the meantime, several reporters have interviewed one of the terrorists in Libya, the very one the FBI explained the Libyan government is preventing them from arresting. It seems to me that we have a far better reason to lob Cruise missiles into Libya than we have for attacking Syria.

So, we can’t get our mitts on a single terrorist, but we’re asked to believe that we can verify that Assad is turning over all of his chemical weapons in the midst of a civil war. Well, why wouldn’t we believe it? After all, we have Putin’s word for it. Frankly, I’d be more apt to believe Putin if I didn’t know that he hates America, is a former KGB officer and that he’s convinced he has a Super Bowl ring because he personally led the New England Patriots to victory, not because he swiped it in broad daylight from sissy team owner Robert Kraft.

Speaking of liars, you may have noticed that after John Kerry mentioned the impossibility of getting Syria to hand over its poison gas, Putin pounced on the notion in his quest to join the likes of Yasser Arafat, Al Gore and Barack Obama, as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, Obama announced he had floated the idea to Putin at the recent G20 conference in Moscow. Does even Bo, the White House dog, believe for a second that if Obama had made such a suggestion, he wouldn’t have reported it at the time? After all, if one of those Peace Prizes is good, two are even better.

Let’s face it, Putin baited the hook, snagged himself a Barack, and he now has the poor dumb fish mounted over his mantel.

Apparently, Nabil Shaath, a Palestinian Authority commissioner has reported that John Kerry guaranteed the Palestinians in writing that the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations would start from the 1967 borders.

Of course that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Being a commissioner for the Palestinians is a lot like being a presidential press secretary. The main prerequisite is the ability to lie with a straight face.

In related news, according to a recent poll, terrorists are viewed more favorably among the Palestinians than they are anywhere else in the Muslim world.

Finally, Pope Francis has recently broken with protocol by smooching President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina and bowing to Queen Rania of Jordan.

I realize it’s all a feeble attempt to display humility. But whether it’s the Pope or the President of the United States who’s doing the bowing, it comes across as utter sham. Nobody who leads a billion Catholics or is the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on earth is going to be any more convincing than Uriah Heep in the role of a humble supplicant.

Author’s Note: Although I’m still seeking sponsors, my online radio show is on the air, every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. That’s L.A. time. Access www.latalkradio.com, channel 1, and click on Listen Live. You can also download to your iPhone or Android apps. The call-in number is (323)203-0815. I’d like to hear your questions and comments, pro or con. Especially pro.