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January 19, 2012 | | WATCH THIS! Andrew Sullivan lit up the web this week with a powerful essay in Newsweek making the case against President Obama’s critics on both the right and the left. On today’s ‘NewsBeast,’ editor in chief Tina Brown sits down with Sullivan to review the whirlwind of media reaction. SURGE Despite the drumbeat of doom ahead of his ex-wife’s ABC News interview on Thursday night, Newt Gingrich is enjoying a last-minute rise in South Carolina, just two days before the state’s primary vote. Gingrich pulled ahead of Mitt Romney 33 percent to 31 percent in a new Rasmussen poll, and also has a narrow lead in new polls from Insider Advantage and Public Policy Polling. Romney is still ahead in Real Clear Politics’ poll index, but only by a hair’s breadth: he leads Gingrich overall by 1.2 percent. SEARCH Search-and-rescue operations aboard the stranded Costa Concordia resumed Thursday—and a Coast Guard spokesman said the ship has stabilized. Recovery efforts for the more than 20 people who remain missing ground to a halt a day earlier as the cruise ship shifted. According to the spokesman, divers are using microexplosives to breach the ship’s hull and continue the search. Salvage operators are on hand to pump fuel from the ship’s tanks to avoid an environmental disaster. Eleven people have officially been declared dead, and another 29 are considering missing. The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest and has been accused by prosecutors of fleeing the ship while evacuations were ongoing. Recount Thirty-four votes is good enough for Rick Santorum. The ex-senator has officially declared himself the winner of the Iowa caucuses after a new tally by the state’s Republican Party showed him with a slim lead. The final count has Santorum ahead by 34 votes, but the results of eight precincts are missing and will never be counted or certified. Furthermore, the GOP discovered inaccuracies in 131 precincts, and changes in one precinct shifted the vote by 50. With such a large margin of error and so many remaining holes in the vote, Chad Olsen, the party’s executive director, declared it a “split decision.” FAREWELL Rick Perry officially suspended his campaign for president Thursday and endorsed his former foe Newt Gingrich. “I’ve concluded there is no viable way forward for this campaign,” Perry said in a speech in Charleston, S.C. Perry said that it was important to continue the “ultimate objective” of not just getting President Obama out of the White House but also to “bring it about with a real conservative leader who can bring real change.” In his endorsement of Gingrich, Perry said, “Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?” and alluded to Gingrich’s marital history by saying, “The fact is, there is forgiveness for those who seek God.” A new NBC News/Marist poll found that among likely Perry voters in South Carolina, 34 percent said Gingrich would be their second choice, 20 percent said Ron Paul, 19 percent said Rick Santorum, and 18 percent said Mitt Romney—but together these account for only 4 percent of all South Carolina voters. | | 
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