them have the courage to stantds up to this guy. it s pathetic. i think romney s response was the most cowardly saying this is the language i wouldn t have used. i think that s disqualified for a presidential candidate to not have the courage to speak out against language calling women sluts and prostitutes. he has grand daughters. he has a wife, and he can t take that basic step of decency. do you agree with that? do you think it was a critical moment? we know he can t connect with anyo anyone. we know he didn t have any convictions what so ever where he s invited to make an obvious condemnation of wrong doing. absolutely right. stunning spinelessness. the inabilities to stand up in the face of a well-known reality and call it for what it is. the inability to make a judgment
you re calling this war? that s what it s turned to. i don t want the add or promote or talk about or bring attention to the negative campaigning and the inner party fighting that s been going on. at the end of the day it s got to stop. it s part of the campaign and it will be in south carolina. there s been a lot of ads that have been cently purchased there. a lot of air time. i think it s only going to get worse. we have to come together and focus on what we have to do in november. onn john, i don t want to spa your blushes. i read your column about his lack of authenticity. how does mitt s inabilities to swallow humble pie affect him going forward? as you say, he s likely to win
it s defined as sunni, shia, kurd or the ethnicities. that s the danger iraq is in. everybody knows as long as there is political instability in that country, is there going to be violence. i can tell you, there are great concerns amongst many iraqis who have helplessly been bearing the brunt of violence that they could be moving towards a bloody bloody sectarian war. no one wants to see that happen. when you look to the politics and politicians inabilities to come to any sort of agreements and various arguments taking place, dispute, sunni backed block that walked out of parliament and cabinet and sunni vice president who has accusations of running terrorists gangs leveled against him hiding in the kurdish north as ordinary iraqi, it does not give you much hope about your future. arwa damon watching this unfold. looks like it s going from bad to worse in iraq and syria. we ll stay in touch. thank you. tens of millions of dollars
stand by to learn more about edith and carolyn, who solved the case of the missing votes. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. tuesday s new hampshire primary is just around the corner. get this, the dramatic anticipation is building for the republican presidential candidates. the first southern showdown will take place on january 21st, our new cnn poll is the first snapshot of support in south carolina, taken after the squeaker in iowa this past week. look at this, mitt romney now has an 18 point lead in the state of south carolina, which wasn t seen necessarily as all that friendly of a place for him. rick santorum has shot into number two in south carolina after his near victory in iowa. romney has an even wider lead in new hampshire, where his closest rival at least right now is ron paul. rick santorum has gained ground in new hampshire as well, his support climbing into the double digi
economy came out just minutes ago. christine roman has those and then zain verjee looking at reaction to a deal made on the debt crisis and alison kosik at the new york stock exchange where your 401(k) could enjoy a big day. christine, let s go ahead and start with you. before we focus on the big debt deal, if you don t mind, let s talk about what this means. tell us about the economy and the good news we re getting. all right, first of all, gdp. how the economy grew in the most recent quarter. the third quarter. 2.5% kyra. that s twice as fast as it was in the second quarter. it shows you there was a pickup in economic activity in the third quarter. and that is the best in a year. so, kyra, that tells us that the economy is doing a little better, it needs to be better than 2.5%, but that is better than it has done in about a year. that is good news about where the economy is going right now. the overnight deal on the european debt crisis. let s talk about how this has im