Some messes are so big that the clean-up can’t be left to surrogates alone. That doesn’t mean the White House won’t let them help — Bob Menendez, Carl Levin, and Chris Van Hollen will all be on this morning to convince you that your lying eyes are wrong and that the last two weeks have been, at least, a passable show of global leadership. But since no one believes that, The One himself will sit down with fair-and-balanced journalist George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” to make the case himself. No one really believes him either, but watching him personally lead the damage-control effort should help build support among Democrats along partisan lines. My guess at the big talking-point takeaway this morning, with apologies to Otto from “A Fish Called Wanda”: We didn’t lose to the Russians on Syria. It was a tie.

Elsewhere, Hank Paulson will be on “Meet the Press” to celebrate the glories of TARP on its fifth anniversary. The full line-up is at Politico.