is responding. we ll take you live to afghanistan. also, no holds bard in south carolina. the candidates unleashing brutal attacks trying to stop mitt romney from steam rolling straight to the nomination. will it work? newt gingrich who said, i m not going to go negative. here s what he said. this is going to be armageddon. they will come in here with everything they ve got, every surrogate, every ad, every negative attack. wait, wait, what happened to the i m not going to go negative? that s ridiculous. i will not go negative until now when i go negative. we ll talk about that. plus, the story of a florida gator quarterback who is not named tim tebow that everybody loves. starting point begins right now. welcome barx, everybody. here inside tick talk diner in new york, lower part of midtown. the delicacy here is this dish. loet me move my coffee out of the way. this is a diner delicacy everywhere. giant waffle covered in fruit and then smothered in whipped cream, a
victim s family stunned and afraid. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. the republican candidates are scrambling to cover as much ground as they can. the south carolina primary only nine days away and early voting in florida starting at the same time. it s now make or break for the stragglers in the gop pack. some are trying to cut into mitt romney s lead by slamming his record as a financier. romney is mounting a counter-offensive in florida today. jim acosta is joining us from west palm beach with the latest. jim? reporter: wolf, don t let all the florida sunshine fool you. mitt romney is coming up a blizzard of attacks from the gop rivals over the issue of corporate layoffs, so the gop front-runner returned to a familiar theme of the campaign, and that is he understands the plight of the unemployed. mitt romney hopes he s found the message to remain his bain in the neck. being unemployed for a long period of time means families are having a hard time ma
crew, both in his role as executive officer and now as commanding officer. i think the navy s going to go back and they re going to interview his crew. their going to determine what the command climate is, and they need to determine, has his attitudes affected the combat readiness of that aircraft carrier. and if it has, that s a whole different ball game and he shouldn t remain in command. but if the investigation determines that there was more to it, and that he, in fact, is looking out for those women, that he understands based upon the circumstances when he made that video, that it was inappropriate and wrong, and that he s since adjusted his behavior and how he leads, with then i think we need to take that into consideration. agree with all that, but it was a series of videos, it wasn t just one. it was weekly, actually, over a period of time. i m not sure how long, exactly. right. although, i m not sure if we know if every one of them was as offensive as this one. weekly vi
out. after dismissing the video on friday and with the uproar building the navy released a new statement saying in part, the videos, quote, were not acceptable then and are still not acceptable in today s navy and the navy does not endorse or condone these actions. captain s honor s command is in doubt. he was both a highly regarded f-14 pilot and reportedly a well-liked xo. a lot of former ship mates have been praising him as a great guy. some of those same people add, even great guys show bad judgment. this is kirk liphold former commander of the uss coal. this is a former cadet discharged under dont ask, don t tell. when you saw the videotape, what did you think? i was immediately appalled. i mean, these are the same anti-gay attitudes that sparked me to leave the academy. under this kind of command climate it s almost impossible to operate.
that needs to be considered, in the case of general mcchrystal, it wasn t that there was a one-time incident and that was it. there were a couple of events that led up to the situation, and the incident with rolling stone, he had been calibrated once, it clearly was not all that effective, and it all went on. in the case of this captain, there s a one-time filament. i think what you need to look at, what has been his attitude and how has he dealt with his crew, both in his role as executive officer and now as commanding officer. i think the navy s going to go back and they re going to interview his crew. their going to determine what the command climate is, and they need to determine, has his attitudes affected the combat readiness of that aircraft carrier. and if it has, that s a whole different ball game and he shouldn t remain in command. but if the investigation determines that there was more to it, and that he, in fact, is looking out for those women, that he understands based u