When you leave the carnival broke, sometimes you don't know how bad you were had until you find your watch is missing.

While the President's spinmeisters struggle to put a happy face on the regime's convoluted pathway to avoid bombing Syria because of their bosses' "red line" faux pas, the back-half of The Putin Set-Spike - as in volleyball - may have come from his sock puppet, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The last line in a 1,500-words piece by CNN reporter Tom Cohen detailing the Syrian Saga reads:

"In the interview with Russian TV on Thursday {Sept. 12}, al-Assad said the United States also must stop arming the rebels for his government to sign on to the global convention banning chemical weapons."

In the White House they may have been celebrating making a pony out of pony...stuff...when out crawls a gargoyle from the bottom of the pile.

Obama's rogue sock puppet, John Kerry, is now missing his watch. 

If the U.S. returns the spike and sours the deal, Obama will be blamed for re-starting the run-up to bombing Syria - something few seem to want, except maybe McCain and Graham.

If the U.S. lets Putin's spike hit the ground on our side of the net, then the Syrian "moderate" rebels get thrown under U.S. arms bus.

It's looking like maybe Obama and Kerry have been KGB'd.