Open Thread

An ABC News/Washington Post poll indicates that 60 percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, and Republicans are evenly divided on whether the war has been worth it. Indeed 54% say the United States should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without completing its current effort to train Afghan forces to become self-sufficient. With the recent and disgusting murders by an American soldier, we need to hightail it out of there. And soon.

Remember, Daylight Saving Time begins tonight. So we "spring" forward, and lose an hour of sleep. Bastards. You know who else are bastards, Republicans. Why? Let Andrew Samwick explain the Republican spin on yesterday's good economic news:

[President Obama] is making inadequate progress getting us out of the hole we dug for you despite our opposition to every program you propose.

I know, I know, most of you are right now writhing on the floor going through withdrawal without the daily dose of polling goodness that usually accompanies our Open Thread. Let me explain what happened. As I was uploading some thumbnail pictures and editing some posts this morning, our server hosting company for some reason thought I was a hacker, and they blocked my IP address. Yes, I was banned from my own blog. The irony. At the time, I thought the whole site went down and we were suffering a server outage. It took most of the morning to track down what happened, and as a result I was not able to post the open thread. But I thank MJ for stepping up, and I thank our IT geek, LiberalGeek, for dealing with my hysterical demands. But now lets feed our addiction.

Well, we've been having server problems again, so we apologize if you've been unable to post comments on our brilliant posts from the past few hours. First off, we want to wish JP Connor Jr a speedy recovery. He tweeted last night that he had suffered a heart attack. While we disagree with him on his support of a certain elected official, we want him to get better fast. We miss his comments with that silly smiley face at the end of them. Hurry up and get well, JP.

On the Gingrich front, he is conceding Kansas to Santorum, and concentrating on Alabama and Mississippi. If Gingrich doesn't win those states, he is out.

So Mitt Romney won Ohio barely, and only at the last second. Not a compelling narrative for his candidacy. He also ended up winning Virginia (where only Ron Paul was his competition), Vermont (neighboring state to his home state), Massachusetts (where he was Governor), Idaho (where there are Mormons) and Alaska. Santorum won Oklahoma, North Dakota and Tennessee. Gingrich won Georgia. So what's next?

Does the Republican primary end today? If Romney wins Ohio and Tennessee, and Santorum only wins Oklahoma and Gingrich only wins Georgia, then I think yes, it is over. If Santorum wins Tennessee, the race will limp along with Romney again the frontrunner who has trouble down south. If Santorum wins Ohio and Tennessee, then Romney is back in trouble again.

We got polls. Lots of them. And the general election polls in Ohio and Virginia may cause Republicans to contemplate suicide as they are so horrible. Also... we have a surprising piece of information on gun ownership in America.

We have your weekly messages from President Obama and Governor Markell, and the latest round of polls from the Super Tuesday states.

If you listen to any Republican or the Conservative Media, you would think Israelis thirst for war with Iran, and that they hate President Obama with the intensity of a thousand white hot suns. Wrong again. A recent poll shows that, while the Government of Israel is a neocon experiment in lunancy and fascism, the people of Israel are just as pluralistic and divided as we Americans are, and it is high time broad brushes were laid down.

Yes, Andrew Brietbart is dead. He apparently had heart issues, and he just collapsed. I can't and won't descend to his level, spewing vitriol as he did following the death of Ted Kennedy. But I won't praise or laud him either. What I will say is that he was only 43 years old, and no one should die that young, especially when he has a young family.

"Rick should scat. Mitt Romney needs to be left alone to limp across the finish line, so he can devote his full time and attention to losing to President Obama." -- Maureen Dowd. The problem is Santorum is inconveniently leading in three of the 10 states up next Tuesday, which includes Ohio.

Remember to vote today in Red Clay. Santorum looks good in Ohio and Tennessee, which have contests next week, on March 6. Romney looks good in Vermont and South Dakota. Meanwhile, the President is cruising in Pennsylvania and Vermont against both Republicans and is shockingly competitive in Tennessee of all places.