OFF THE CUFF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Why didn’t Obama seek congressional authorization before instituting red line?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: India’s Economic Crisis A Bigger Story Than Syria:

The economic crisis in India represents a much more fateful moment in world politics than anything happening in Syria.

What’s so important about India’s economic problems? It’s more what they tell us about the state of the country than the severity of the problems themselves. The stock market jitters, the currency crash, the GDP slowdown and the government deficit aren’t enough in themselves to sink India. All economies go through rough patches every now and then, but the question isn’t about a downturn. The question is whether the Indian political system has what it takes to get the economy back on track.

Two horrible things happened in India this week: an inept government reeling from serial corruption scandals and mounting evidence of economic failure pushed two bad bills towards enactment. There’s a wasteful “food security law” that will do much more to nourish India’s rich world of government corruption than to help the poor on a sustainable basis, and a poorly designed “land reform” law that could be even more crippling.

We’ve noted the food bill before; the land law is new and its consequences could be devastating enough to India’s growth prospects to change the course of world history.

Read the whole thing.

SMART DIPLOMACY: “I know you’re trying to subtly rope me in to the issues of the day. I refuse to be roped in.”

FROM STEPHEN GREEN, some leadership advice for President Obama.

Related: Obama Hits Golf Course After Announcing National Emergency.

SPYING: Test ‘reveals Facebook, Twitter and Google snoop on emails’: Study of net giants spurs new privacy concerns.

AT AMAZON, deals on featured items in Tableware.

Also, men’s wallets.

And, today only: Lorex LNC104 LIVE Ping Wireless Monitoring Camera, $89.99 (53% off).

ILYA SOMIN: Thoughts on the Text of the Obama Administration’s Proposed Authorization to Use Military Force in Syria.

UPDATE: Seen on Facebook:

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Shorter Obama to France: Do This War for Me?

HMM: Intelligence in Syria suggests US saw attack coming, didn’t act.

ROLL CALL: Can Obama Regain His Lost Leverage on Spending?

ONE CHEER FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA: Tim Carney: Obama puts brakes on growth of presidential war powers. Well, unless he strikes Syria anyway if he loses a vote.

PAPER TIGER: OFA’s pro-amnesty rally in Columbus reportedly draws crowd of six.

AS SOMEBODY WAS NOTING ON TWITTER, THIS PIECE ON BLACK POVERTY in the New Yorker keeps brushing up against Reynolds’ Law. It does make that whole Great Society thing seem like a big fat failure, though.

THE HILL HAS THE TEXT of Obama’s draft Syria resolution.

But there’s also this: Obama leaving door open to Syria strike, even if Congress votes no. If I were the Congressional leadership, I wouldn’t take a vote unless Obama promised to abide by it. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Related: Time: Syria Intervention Would Reaffirm Obama’s Biggest Flip-Flop: He was explicit in 2007 that Presidents don’t have the authority to act unilaterally except to stop ‘an actual or imminent threat.’

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Big Confidence Gap Splitting the U.S. Middle Class. “It’s always been true that those who are better off have a more sanguine view of the economy. In the last year, though, that gap has become especially glaring. For households with income of more than $50,000 a year, confidence is up to the levels of 2007. For those below that, it’s not even close. . . . For a long time it was a cliché that much of the U.S. working class felt ‘middle class.’ Now it appears that a big part of the middle class — those households in the $35,000 to $50,000 a year bracket — feels poor.”

This is the effect of ObamaCare and tax increases on hiring, and it’s exactly what’s to be expected of a Gentry Liberal administration, which is all about the upper half of the middle class against the lowers.

HOLLYWOOD, BABBLE ON: “Garcetti’s futile efforts to stem the tide of film and television productions abandoning California for other states, and Canada, which offer tax incentives and less punitive, rapacious governments, are a symptom of much larger problem.”

Plus: “Oh, and by the way — repeal the Hollywood tax cuts!” Yes, let’s.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Does Low-Fat Yogurt Make You Fat?

DONALD SENSING: Is Obama setting up a two-prong Constitutional crisis?

TOM MAGUIRE: “Circling The Drain On Syria: Times coverage of Obama’s latest plan for Syria is brutal.”

FOREIGN POLICY AND Cascade Effects.

SOON TO BE A VOGUE FEATURE: As Syria implodes, Mrs Assad splashes out on chandeliers, Western food and fitness fads: Bizarre shopping spree of the British beauty holed up in bunker with vile dictator.

AT AMAZON, Top Deals in Video Games.

Also, bestsellers in Military History.

DOG WHISTLE: Cornel West: MLK 50 Was ‘Coronation of Bonafide House Negro of Obama Plantation…Al Sharpton.’

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Ashland U. Slashes Tuition by 37%. “Instead of being charged an estimated $30,000 for the 2014-15 academic year, the roughly 3,200 undergraduates at Ashland will pay a little less than $19,000—a decrease of 37 percent. And while the university is also reducing the institutional financial aid it offers, it says it is still lowering the net price that most students will pay. The changes in tuition and aid are meant to reduce the sticker shock that potential students and parents might experience when weighing Ashland against other college choices, campus officials said in a news release.”

This is good. I’m glad I ran across this because I’ll be speaking on the higher education bubble at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland next week. Glad I’m appearing before Mark Steyn, rather than having to follow him . . . .

PROF. JACOBSON: White-liberal white-baiting link-baiting gone wild.