The NFL Hall of Fame results are in. Curtis Martin, Chris Doleman, Cortez Kennedy, Willie Roaf, Dermontti Dawson, and Jack Butler made it.

Bill Parcells, Cris Carter, and Jerome Bettis got stiff-armed! Thoughts?

I wholeheartedly agree with everything that CBS Sports blogger Mike Freeman, a New York Times football writer when I knew him years ago, says here:

The two greatest motivators in NFL history, the coaches who got players to do things and go places in their careers they thought they never could, were Don Shula and Parcells. The best pure motivators ever. Period. That is a coach's primary job. Nothing happens before that -- not the Xs and Os, nothing -- before getting a player mentally ready. Shula was the best at that (what he did in Miami with the then expansion Dolphins is borderline miraculous) and Parcells was second.
He turned around the Giants, the Patriots, and Jets when those latter two organizations were absolutely awful.

Freeman wonders if a writers' vendetta may be at work. (Parcells wasn't too warm and fuzzy with the scribes.) Others, Freeman says, claim that Parcells was nuthin' without Belichick by his side. I stand with Freeman, who says he's "stunned."

I am thrilled for Curtis Martin. A first class fellow. This story, about his relationship with his father, proves it.

So, Claire. The National is now running analysts' commentaries floating a joint Turkish-Jordanian-Gulf intervention in Syria, meaning a Turkish intervention. None less than Anne-Marie Slaughter says this is "a realistic scenario." Obviously this is about the last possible thing the Russians would want. (Well, second last.) But Turkey is, in spite of it all, in a position of relative strength and freedom of operation.

And so: how likely do you judge such an eventuality to be? If at all likely, how soon?

Watch this. Now.

Marco Rubio always seems to follow Peter's four word advice about speech-giving: "Crack jokes. Tell stories." It's a rarity in the Senate, where so many are in love with the sounds of their own voices. But the principles that undergird these words are the key element, the aspect so often sorely lacking in political speeches today.

Watch it here. 

I honestly have no clue how many people were marching in Moscow today and to what end, but it's sure interesting to read the reports of it and see the way the journalists are describing it. 

The New York Times has protesters thronging frozen Moscow in anti-Putin protest, noting only in paragraph seven that apparently, the pro-Putin protests were four times the size of the anti-Putin protests--which to my mind suggests a different headline, but what do I know. 

The Wall Street Journal suggests that anti-Putin protests were numerically so insignificant as to be worth mentioning only in the final paragraph. 

According to the BBC, thousands join pro- and anti-Putin protests. The lede says: "Tens of thousands" but the figures subsequently morph--perhaps 120,000 pro-, perhaps 90,000 anti-; the reporter doesn't seem to have eyeballed both crowds personally to say whether they were even close to the same size, although apparently they took place only a few kilometers away from each other.

The Economist: Russians stage rival protests. Okay. Rival protests. That's a bit different from anti-Putin protests.

Voice of America? Dueling rallies. MSNBC: I get it, the journalists are really cold. Everyone seems to agree that it is damned cold in Moscow in the winter. I understand this has historically often been true.

The Telegraph's report doesn't even hint at a pro-Putin rally. Al Arabiya: Russians complain of pressure to attend pro-Putin rally. (This suggests that there was, indeed, a pro-Putin rally, which you wouldn't know from reading that piece in the Telegraph, and which seems to me kind of important, but what do I know.)

Russia Today, quoting the Russian police: 36 thousand were on Bolotnaya Square and around 135,000 on Poklonnaya Hill. The latter is the pro-Putin rally. 

RIANOVOSTI: The pro-Putin rally lambasts the Orange Trash. 

Bulgarian national radio, apparently, thinks the numbers at the protests were about equal.

I found all of this a bit confusing, so I asked Tony Halprin (of the Times of London) what was going on. Was it true that numerically, the pro-Putin rallies were actually vastly bigger than the anti-Putin ones? He replied, "in scale yes though as I said earlier there are serious questions about whether people came voluntarily to Putin rally."

He also said, "Doesn't follow that Putin would lose an honest election. But he's definitely lost the urban middle class."

Right. And we all know that the urban middle class is what the People are all about.

Especially in Russia. 

            In the wake of Mitt Romney’s resounding victory in Florida’s primary, the odds of anyone other than Romney capturing the Republican nomination seem to be as low as the odds Barack Obama will be offered a guest professorship at Hillsdale College.  As one of the many conservatives who are less than enthused about the nomination of a self-described “Progressive whose views are moderate,” the time has come to decide whether or not to bite the bullet and vote for Romney in the general election.  Traditional party orthodoxy suggests that I should support the lesser of two evils.  However, Romney’s ideology is so antithetical to the principles of conservatism that I believe the best thing I can do for the conservative movement and the country in the upcoming election is refuse to give my support or vote to Mitt Romney.

            The biggest blow to Romney’s conservative credentials is his support for the state-level version of Obamacare during his time in Massachusetts.  Romney’s supporters have painted Romneycare as the best of many bad choices for Romney in Massachusetts (although why they would offer up “Three Cheers” for the best of bad alternatives is beyond me.)  I would be OK with supporting Romney if he openly stated that Romneycare was a mistake that the legislature forced on him.  Unfortunately, Romney has decided to defend his mini-Obamacare project.  Romney himself said “I’m proud of what we’ve done” in reference to Romneycare and lauded it as a “Model for the nation.”  When asked about what he thought of Obamacare in 2010, Romney said he wanted to “Keep the good parts,” and applauded the “Incentives to purchase private insurance” (in other words, the individual mandate.)  These are hardly the words of someone who views Romneycare as the lesser of many evils.  Instead, they point to a man who is proud of signing the precursor to Obamacare into law and is fine with an individual mandate on the federal level.   

            Furthermore, Romney’s defense of the individual mandate bears a surprising resemblance to the arguments used by Progressives such as Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to justify their expansions of government.  Romney has argued that government-mandated health insurance is based on “Personal responsibility” and Romneycare protects individual rights by preventing “free riders” from gaming the system.  It almost seems as if Romney believes we must abandon free market healthcare principles to save free market healthcare.  Furthermore, Romney’s argument for Romneycare echoes Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s sentiments in the Commonwealth Club Address that “The exercise of the property rights might so interfere with the rights of the individual that the government, without whose assistance the property rights could not exist, must intervene, not to destroy individualism but to protect it.”  FDR and Romney make identical arguments.  Romney argues that the exercise of individual rights on healthcare infringes on the rights of other individuals, and thus the government must intervene to protect “individualism.”

            Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a column arguing that dissatisfied conservatives should vote for Romney because he will owe the conservatives who elected him and govern like a conservative.  Unfortunately, Romney and his supporters have shown no sign that they care what conservatives in the Republican Party think.  Romney’s scorched-earth campaign tactics against Newt Gingrich and the dismissive, snide treatment Romney’s apologists have given anyone who dares question The Mitt Romney’s conservatism (I’m looking at you, Ann Coulter and David Frum) doesn’t bode well for conservatives who hope Romney will listen to them.  Furthermore, voting for Romney will hardly make him want to listen to conservatives.  If anything, it will show that Romney can take conservatives for granted and still earn their votes. 

            Mitt Romney’s approach towards government places him drastically outside the conservative camp.  Instead of arguing that big government must be eliminated, Romney seems to believe that he can run big government well.  Voting for Romney sends the message that conservative voices can be ignored with impunity.  Conservatives are ignored by candidates like Romney because they believe conservatives will simply vote for whoever has an R next to their name, the only way to ensure the GOP understands that conservative voices cannot be ignored is to show that our votes are not guaranteed.  Mitt “I’m a Progressive” Romney is the ideal candidate to use as proof that even the most loyal Republicans have their limits and will not vote for Liberalism Light.       

As several news sources have reported, California Comptroller John Chiang has warned that the California state government may run out of cash in March.  As today's Daily Bruin (UCLA student newspaper) reports, the California state government might borrow $200 million from the University of California.  Here's a portion of the Daily Bruin article:

A loan from the UC would create a necessary cash cushion in case revenues start to drop dramatically, said Jacob Roper, a press secretary for the state controller’s office.

The UC has a higher credit rating than the state, said Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for the UC.

That means the UC can borrow money at a lower interest rate – which is why the state prefers to borrow from the University, Klein said.

“While the University would prefer not to loan the money, in reality I don’t think the University will refuse,” Klein said. “This is a seldom occurrence, but clearly in times such as these when we’ve got budgetary problems it’s become more frequent.”

It's been so long since the last Young Guns podcast, we considered changing the name to the Middle Aged Guns. Nonetheless, they're back, this week to kick around presidential politics, the appeal of Ron Paul, the Murray quiz, Game Change, Super Bowl picks, and a visit from the Iron Lady, courtesy of our own Diane Ellis. 

Already a Ricochet member? You can subscribe to Young Guns or get it on Stitcher. Everyone else, listen in below. 

All bow to EJHill for the illustration. 

Now this takes real chutzpah:

Opposite the Kremlin walls, a group of extremely gutsy young Russians hung up a banner showing an x'ed out caricature of Putin alongside the words "Putin, Depart."  According to Ilya Yashin, the banner stayed in place for over 40 minutes as frantic authorities attempted to rip it down.

Photographer Yevgeny Feldman documented the whole stunt here.

On a related note, thousands of Russians demanding fair elections are scheduled to march in Moscow against Putin tomorrow.

Glad to see National Review reporting one of the more alarming — but thus far ignored — aspects of President Obama's HHS mandate. It seems that the Catholic bishop for the military prepared a letter to be read at Masses -- and that someone in the chaplains corps said that it could not.

Here's a post by Kathryn Lopez from National Review to Republicans in Congress: we need to know whether the chaplains corps took this on itself -- or had instruction from the White House. In other words, it would be worth a hearing and getting people under oath about who directed whom to do or not do what. What is unclear is whether the Secretary of the Army gets to decide what the Catholic church can say from its pulpits.

Also the concern about "civil disobedience" is ridiculous. This is not a law. This is an executive mandate that provides an avenue for people who do not wish to comply, by forcing them to pay a fine. It is entirely within the rights of groups to call on their members to do so.

After announcing on Wednesday that it would no longer fund Planned Parenthood, the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure has now reversed course, capitulating to a frenzy of online and Capitol-Hill protests by "pro-choice" activists (see Diane's earlier post). That's right - after just two days of protest, the foundation capitulated.  Come on guys, the French held out longer than that.  

A spokesman for the foundation apologized for "recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives." And so, to demonstrate their commitment to "saving lives," they'll keep pumping money into America's largest abortion mill. 

The Atlantic proclaims that 2012 is shaping up to be "the year of the virtual protests" given the Komen about-face and the recent SOPA blackouts. I think it's a little early to predict, but I see no harm in a new round of anti-Komen protests from the Right. Who knows? The foundation's management might change their minds again. We know what they are; now we're just quibbling over details.

After a day of trying to upload the rest of the videos and thinking about what I can do to present what limited information I have in some journalistically responsible way, I've reached my limit.

Let me put this to you simply. Assad is a monster. He is evil beyond comprehension. No one is going to stop him until he and everyone around him is dead. But you're out of your minds if you convince yourself the FSA is comprised of potentially friendly, liberal democrats. There's not a liberal democrat between here and the Horn of Africa, just trust me on this; they don't even know what those words mean, they just know that you have to say them if you want to have any hope of being saved by those weird but freakishly powerful Americans for whom the words "liberal democrats" are the magic elixer. There will be no friendly, moderate, secular regime in Syria, ever, and the first thing the FSA will do if anyone helps them is slaughter Alawites and Christians. Everyone knows it, and at this point, who could possibly be surprised and who could blame them. They hate the world in this descending order, with allowances for overlap: Shia, Jews, Christians, Iran, America, Israel, Russia, Turkey. They'll probably hate each other, too, soon enough. 

The only options here are unbearably awful and unspeakably awful. There's no happy outcome. The United States remains the only country in the world with anything like the military power to change this situation in a meaningful way, and nothing but military power will affect it, and the US isn't going to use it. Our economy is in the tank, we're tied down around the world, we're hamstrung by Russia and Iran. We're done with this region; we're not even interested.

We will be blamed for not intervening, just as we were blamed for intervening in Iran and Iraq, and everyone will forget that both intervening and not intervening are moral choices; and the US was never presented--ever--with a choice between supporting good and supporting evil in this part of the world, just between supporting evil and supporting slightly-less-evil. In a choice between supporting evil and supporting slightly less-evil, slightly-less-evil equals good. That's the real world.

America is a democracy, and you can't get innocent, naive democrats like Americans, people who have never seen evil in their entire lives outside of the movies, to get behind the use of military force to create "slightly less evil," so you tell them they're fighting for liberal democracy like the kind they enjoy and for which they--rightly--feel grateful. When they find out the truth, that they were sent to defend slightly-less-evil, they become disillusioned and withdraw from the world, sometimes for decades. The world doesn't improve because of that, no matter what anyone thinks.  

So, yeah, they're Islamists, not the shy flower of the Scottish Enlightenment, but they seem to have some interest in democracy, and they talk about the Turkish model, which I'm sure they don't understand, but which, if it means to them, "Islamic and democratic," is probably a good thing. Maybe if you could get enough UN peacekeepers in there fast enough after Assad falls, you could prevent some of the slaughter of the minorities that would otherwise ensue. Maybe you could get a functional state up-and-running fast enough that Syria doesn't become the Somalia of the Levent, maybe not. 

The risk right now to Syria's neighbors, if it tries to help, is extreme: Assad holds the PKK card, it has huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The regime is going bankrupt, at the very least there will be floods of refuges if this continues, Turkey certainly can't absorb them. The Russians would be perfectly happy for every man, woman and child in Syria to be tortured and killed so long as nothing gets between itand its warm water base at Tartus. The French and the British will make very stern noises, but what are they going to do. UN? Useless. Arab League? Useless. GCC? Useless. 

Meanwhile, those kids are dying. I've met some of them, Ilhan has met many more, and they're kids who have been pushed into radicalism because they're going to be killed tomorrow, so you better well hope there's a better life on the other side. It's that simple, really. 

The only plan I can think of that might have a hope of working is to ask Turkey to accept as many refugees as necessary--with our financial help if needed--and for Turkey publicly to flood arms over the border in the hope that this breaks the Assad forces' will and prompts massive defections. Ilhan thought that was plausible. Assad and his closest intimates should be offered a nice place to retire, quickly. Istanbul or Paris would be fine; London might make Asma, Rose of the Desert feel more at home. Resettle the Druze to Israel and the Alawites to Iran. Pour in aid to reconstruct the place. It won't happen, the US economy's a mess. On the plus side, losing Syria will be a terrible blow to Iran. That's the only plus side. 

9. "They're not happy with you guys ... I do believe that the US has to show that it is with the people. OK, a lot of statements are coming out, but no body cares about statements about now, You hear. over and over, the US doesn't care about us. Now is a good time to change this perspective."

10. Ilhan tries to answer your specific questions:

Ilhan will have a log-on tomorrow and may be able to answer any further questions you have.

Glad I was able to brighten your day.

I have a piece in the new City Journal on the mayoral administration of Ed Koch. Koch was and is a liberal, but he is, in his words, a liberal with "sanity." This sanity helped him bring New York City back from a very rough period with a mix of fiscal discipline, a willingness to stand up to public sector unions, media savvy, humor, and good old-fashioned boosterism.

Today we face some similar problems, although the prospect of bankruptcy is looming and not yet actual. Unfortunately, Obama and today's Democratic party are not going to take steps to fix our problems if it means angering their core liberal constituencies, something that Koch was often willing to do. Koch endorsed Obama in 2008, unendorsed him last year over Obama's Israel stance, then re-endorsed him again recently. Here's hoping Koch jumps off the endorsement wagon again before November rolls around.

Just moments ago, Meghan Clyne, Diane Ellis, Keith Urbahn and I concluded recording the long-overdue return of "The Young Guns" podcast. There are many reasons to listen (not least Diane's demonstration of some remarkable vocal gymnastics), but this episode also has upped the stakes for this weekend's Super Bowl. Ms. Clyne, an unrepentant New York Giants fan, and myself -- a New England Patriots supporter -- have a wager that will determine how the next episode of the podcast begins.

We've planted our flags. How about you? Who are you pulling for this weekend and why? And what will be greater -- the number of points scored or the number of worthwhile commercials?

I'm a media critic who specializes in religion coverage. Over at GetReligion, we produce daily critiques of how well the mainstream media handle religion news. It's been a weird couple of weeks. There was, for instance, the CBS slideshow of "March for Life activists" that somehow managed to avoid capturing a single picture of, well, a March for Life activist (despite their being, literally, hundreds of thousands of them). Instead, a dozen or so pro-choice activists were photographed and rephotographed.

And there has been the surprisingly restrained coverage of the Obama Administration's aggression against Catholic and other religious charities. They have one year to choose the impossible -- whether to stop serving the poor or violate their conscience. Neither option is fair. When the HHS rule was met with a huge backlash -- literally 80% of bishops have issued personal communications to their dioceses condemning the intrusion on religious freedom -- most media outlets ignored it. Some still haven't even covered the general rule!

But this week? Whoa. If you thought that the media were irreligious, you were proved wrong. They couldn't be more religious. It's just that their church is Planned Parenthood. Their sacrament is abortion. Any attack against their church, such as Susan G. Komen's decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood, has been met with the most fervent defense of the faith I've ever seen. Never mind that Planned Parenthood doesn't even do mammograms. Never mind that the money in question is a small fraction of either organization's budget.

Over at GetReligion, I look at some of the more egregious examples. But even these are only a small fraction of what's coming down the pike in an unrelenting barrage in defense of Planned Parenthood.

And the Church of Planned Parenthood reigns supreme. They have vanquished their enemies and accomplished what they wanted. Komen funds will once again be funneled to a $1 billion organization that terminates 330,000 pregnancies a year.

I've been on the hunt for Mitt Romney defenses that are persuasive. Jonah Goldberg's column today makes a point about Romney that I find at least worth discussing. He says that some conservatives are sold on Romney and some merely think he has a problem articulating conservative principles. A third group just doesn't buy that he's conservative at all. We have all three groups here at Ricochet but it's the last group that Goldberg addresses:

First, let me say: I feel your pain. The Tea Party arose in no small part out of a delayed allergic reaction to the rhetorical and, to a lesser extent, policy problems of George W. Bush’s presidency and the deep resentment that came with having to vote for John McCain in 2008. These disappointments were visited upon the conservative base by something the naysayers (often problematically) call “the Republican establishment.”

After what seems like an eternity under Obama, and with the raised expectations from the Tea Party’s earlier successes, conservatives are extremely reluctant to settle or compromise simply on the say-so of the establishment. For good reasons and bad, Romney seems like a compromise. And no matter how begrudgingly a conservative comes to accept the reality of Romney’s nomination, the diehards immediately proclaim any support for Romney to be proof of membership in the establishment. In fact, it seems like the best definition of a Republican-establishment member these days is simply someone who has made peace with his disappointment prematurely.

I love that last line. Goldberg goes on to say "It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you." A President Gingrich would "wander off into trouble" within 10 minutes:

If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to “fix” health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments.

So, what do you think about this transactional case for Romney? I can buy it, although I wonder if the pro-choice progressives who elected him in Massachusetts would argue differently about his vows (I guess he stayed true enough to them while in office, only becoming more pro-life and conservative after he left?).

I apologize that parts of this are out of order. I'm having trouble uploading some of it. I don't know why. I figure it's better to put this up out of sequence, today, than to obsess about the editing and put it up next week.

5.  IH: "In the hospital, someone came and [shot] every single protester" CB: "Someone came and shot the wounded?" 

6. "The security forces can get hold of the bodies, as well, and if they got the bodies you don't get them back, you have to pay then 100, 150, 200 thousand Syrian pounds ... this is a trade, they sell anything and everything, it's everywhere, every city they say the same kind of stories ... the snipers kill, after that they again try to get the body ... people try to donate money because they're pretty poor, most of them ... they try to make money out of bodies that they kill ... the people who they kill, they go around and find the male relatives of the killed person, and then they arrest them, because they want to make sure to silence these male relatives. ... The day I was arrested the security forces grabbed Harasta back, all of these people I contact[ed] through Skype, Facebook, I don't see them on line, so I greatly worry, since we know that these suburbs [are] now under regime control." 

7. "I was there last week and I know that this week the conditions are much worse ... Saturday afternoon there was a funeral in Duma that the army attacked, six people were died, I have pictures, tens of people were wounded. Tension in Duma suddenly [rose], and the FSA got in control of the city and the army was outside of the city, and basically I couldn't get out of the city, it was still sieged by the army, so I couldn't leave ... Finally the door was banging, and my roommate came and said, 'They want you.' ... So they arrested us, they didn't hit me at that moment, but they were beating that guy really harshly ... They didn't know how to treat me at that moment, they weren't sure exactly who I was ... They were rude to me, but it was nothing compared to what they were doing right there at that minute to that guy ... really terrible noise in the background, they were begging, I cannot imagine what's going to happen to them ... "

8. "I had no idea what they were going to do to me ... they wouldn't let me call my embassy, no way. ...  I thought, 'Okay, this is not going well.' ... They took me downstairs, which is a terrible, terrible place ... smells, I cannot describe how disgusting it was ... people are coming in chained, like ten, five, ten people ... they were really angry at me, I can see ... they only hit me in the chaos, and it wasn't too bad, compared to other people ... I have no idea who did it, they did it from my back ... it could have been much worse, it was chaos."

We did get to most of Ricochet's questions, by the way, stay tuned. 

With all the Sturm und Drang over the 2012 nomination fight, it’s easy to lose sight of the equally important, if not more important, battles that are occurring across the country in what may be one of the most significant Senate elections in the modern era. 

To set the scene: The Democrats are defending horrid ground this cycle, truly horrid. They have seven open seats to defend, including two—replacing Nebraska Cornhusker Kickback King Ben Nelson and liberal bichon frise lover Kent Conrad of North Dakota—which are, barring the arrival of a sweet meteor of death, almost assured to end up in the Republican column.

And for the Republicans, the opposite is true – they have just two open seats to defend. The first is in the strongly red Texas to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison (where the powerful and rich as Croesus Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is the significant favorite over rising conservative star and Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz). The second is in the significantly red Arizona, where Republican Congressman Jeff Flake is the near-certain victor, to replace conservative stalwart Jon Kyl.

There are numerous races out of the remaining seats which could be included as the top ones to watch. Ohio, New Mexico, and Montana will be significant battles. Republican primaries in Indiana, Utah, and the aforementioned Texas could prove surprising. Nevada is one area of Republican concern, when it comes to holding John Ensign’s seat with current Sen. Dean Heller. But in my view, these are the top races to watch for 2012.

5. Wisconsin

A state that has only gained in national prominence thanks to the heated battles with Gov. Scott Walker and Paul Ryan’s ascension as liberal boogeyman, Wisconsin’s Senate seat is being sought by Rep. Tammy Baldwin for the Democrats, who awaits the victor of a primary contest where the two major contestants are former four-term Gov. Tommy Thompson and former Rep. Mark Neumann. I’ve known both men for years (and worked for Thompson at HHS), and their styles are widely divergent. Neumann, a businessman and a deficit hawk, has attempted to build Tea Party credibility to gain traction against the still popular Thompson, who has caught a bit of Washingtonitis (many of the charges against him seem similar to those brought against Newt Gingrich – questioning the lines of influence and lobbying). But even though he hasn’t run for anything in more than a decade, Thompson is still a capable politician and well-connected. In chatting with some contacts in Wisconsin, they emphasized his surprising ease in returning to the campaign stump without skipping a beat. If this continues and gaffes are avoided, Neumann will have a tough time beating him.

This race may end up resembling Indiana’s 2010 race, where retired Senator Dan Coats returned to electoral politics and beat out John Hostetler and Marlin Stutzman in a closer than expected primary. The old hands tend to comfort people in tough times.

4. Missouri

Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill is just not a very good politician. With a tin-ear and a tendency for gaffes, she is currently benefiting in polls from a divided GOP field, which includes Rep. Todd Akin, businessman John Brunner, and former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman. But that benefit is quite small. According to Democratic polling firm PPP, “McCaskill's approval numbers have hit their lowest mark since Democrats' disastrous summer of 2010, and that she no longer leads any of her potential Republican opponents for reelection.” Akin and Steelman have tangled in a couple of debates, with Steelman accusing the Congressman of being a bit too Washington (particularly on earmarks, which Akin supports). Brunner has spent a good deal of money raising his name ID, but has yet to debate. I’d put the odds slightly in favor of Akin taking the primary—Steelman is short on cash, and Brunner is unproven—but with any of these three, the race is likely to be close and hard-fought.

McCaskill may be a poor politician, but she’s likely to get a significant amount of financial backing from national Democrats in an important state.

3. Virginia

Another former Senator trying to win his old job back is Virginia’s George Allen, ousted by the now-retiring Jim Webb in a 2006 election that saw the most prominent YouTube casualty since the site’s inception. Allen is the odds-on favorite to win the nomination, but his path became more difficult with the entrance of social conservative hero Del. Bob Marshall, who nearly beat former Gov. Jim Gilmore for the GOP Senate nomination in 2008. There are key differences this time, however—that 2008 race was a convention, not a primary format, and Allen’s statewide name ID is far superior. And another opponent in the race, Tea Party leader Jamie Radtke, could easily end up splitting more conservative voters.

As for Allen, the son of the Redskins coach has gone through a roller coaster ride in his career—a rising star in the late 1980s, he was redistricted out of his Congressional seat after the 1990 election and decided to run for governor, upsetting a popular Democrat Attorney General and becoming one of the more popular governors in the modern history of the Old Dominion. In 2000 he took on veteran Democrat Chuck Robb for the Senate seat, becoming the only Republican in that year to knock off a Democrat incumbent (coattails in that election were not in George W.’s repertoire). Allen was viewed as a potential presidential candidate in 2008 by many—unfortunately, this may have led him to serve with too much of a mind on national politics, not the state he represented. When the macaca gaffe came, his campaign team—led by once-vaunted consultant Dick Wadhams, who would in a few short years go from being hyped as the next Karl Rove to being booted from chairmanship of the Colorado GOP—mismanaged their response to a terrible degree. Allen's inability to handle the media crush handed the election to Webb, who was barely a Democrat and never had much interest in being a Senator.

Should he take the primary nod—and I expect he will—Allen will be up against another former Governor, Democrat Tim Kaine. Kaine may be hurt by serving in his prior role as DNC chair, which doesn’t play well in the more red parts of Virginia. But Kaine is still generally liked, and Virginia is very much a purple state these days. National fortunes - popular GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell is high on the list of potential Vice Presidential nominees - may play heavily into how Allen fares on Election Day. One problem for Republicans: the fact that an abbreviated primary slate (only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the ballot) may lead to a lack of information for Republican get out the vote efforts has some GOP politicos concerned about a missed opportunity in a swing state. There will essentially be no opportunity for a test run for November, and last time around, Obama's team had a dominant ground game that turned the state blue.

2. Massachusetts

The moderate to liberal Republican Scott Brown, elected to replace Ted Kennedy as the 41^st vote against Obamacare, is likely to face what for all intents and purposes is the great liberal hope of the 2012 cycle: the decidedly anti-capitalist Elizabeth Warren. Warren has pulled in an absurd $5.7 million in donations in the fourth quarter of 2011. Left-wing idol Warren is essentially the place for true liberals to put their cash this cycle, a martyr for the cause (her nomination to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she envisioned was blocked by Senate Republicans) who speaks in stridently leftist language about bringing the moneymakers to heel. I still can’t help but laugh a bit at the New York Times headline from last year—“Heaven Is a Place Called Elizabeth Warren”.

While Warren has a cult-like following of hangers-on, she is not a particularly proven general election politician. Last month, she flubbed a question on the Red Sox (something which proved the undoing of Brown’s prior challenger, Martha Coakley), a big no-no in Bay State politics. But I expect that so much money will flow into this race on Warren’s behalf this cycle that Brown will be hard put to defend his seat. He’s responded to this by shifting to the left in numerous ways—perhaps what has to be done, but unlikely to engender him to national donors.

Will Mitt Romney step in as the nominee to bail Brown out? Does Romney even have that kind of pull in Massachusetts any more? Does Brown, who's been tying himself to Obama of late, even want the help? The candidates make this a key race to watch, and for many liberals, they’d gladly trade a few losses in other states to be able to get Warren into the Senate.

1. Florida

The big prize this cycle in my opinion has to be Florida, a state that should by all rights have two conservative Senators, but instead has the frustratingly enduring Democrat Bill Nelson. Nelson has $8.4 million in cash on hand and won in 2006 with 60% of the vote, but he faces a fresh-faced challenger with a famous name of Rep. Cornelius McGillicuddy IV… better known as Connie Mack, the 44 year old son of the former Senator Nelson originally replaced. The latest Miami Herald poll data has Nelson up slightly, with a three-point lead over Mack the younger, 45-42 percent. In Mack’s favor, he hasn’t come out of a crowded primary yet (he got into the race late); but in Nelson’s favor, it’s unclear if Mack will be able to match his war-chest, and whether his famous name will be matched by his performance down the line.

Over the past few weeks, Mack gained abundant free television coverage by being an outspoken surrogate for Mitt Romney, trailing Newt Gingrich around to various events to do offsetting interviews. The Herald pronounced him the real winner of the Florida primary thanks to his performance. But as a swing state that went for Obama last time, Florida could see a great deal of presence from the presidential candidates in the fall, and how much that changes the course of the race is difficult to predict. Knocking off Nelson would be an impressive feat, and if Mack can pull it off, Florida could lay claim to two young Republican senators with very bright futures.

I spoke to Ilhan about what he saw in Syria for several hours last night, and I recorded most of the conversation--where there are gaps it's because he took a break for a cigarette or because a cat jumped on the computer. I don't have the technical ability quickly to edit this into something more digestible, but I'm not sure that would be desirable even if I could do it. I'll give you my idea of what the most important parts are, but watch as much as your schedule permits and come to your own conclusions. 

1: "One of the people in the news business told me some of these videos might be exaggerated."

2. CB: "You showed up with a Turkish passport with a lot of entry and exit stamps from the United States. And if you put your name in Google it shows that you're a journalist who's been writing about this issue ... and you show up with some story about opening a shwarma restaurant and they say, "Okay?" ...  "

3. IH: "I was saying I was looking for a good chef, to add new shwarma or whatever it is to my restaurant .... " CB: "What kind of shwarma chef were you supposedly looking for?"

4. "Conditions are far worse than I expected. ... They come house by house and they arrest every single person ... it's far worse than anything you can imagine. ... the civil war has not arrived yet, but it looks like maybe a few weeks ... I definitely think Assad forces must be distracted, must be distracted, they're using all their resources on the people ... but they're doing this because there's nothing else they worry about right now ... Yes, Assad might play whatever he's got--Kurds, PKK, it's a risk ... "Everyone is waiting, Assad does what he does best ... today, they might do just what they did 30 years ago, same exact thing, and we are watching it again."

Start there. I'll keep uploading and trying to summarize.