(Newser)
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Afghanistan weighed heavily on the Sunday talk shows, in the wake of today's shooting rampage that killed 16 civilians, with Newt Gingrich calling into question the efficacy of the 10-year mission there. "I think that we’re risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may frankly not be doable," he told Fox News Sunday. "I think it's very likely that we have lost, tragically lost, the lives and suffered injuries to a considerable number of young Americans on a mission that we’re going to discover is not doable." He also told Face the Nation the mission was "probably counterproductive. We’re not prepared to be ruthless enough to force them to change, yet we’re clearly an alien presence." Lindsey Graham also chimed in, reports Politico, adding that the massacre was "tragic and will be investigated," but that, "unfortunately, these things happen in war. You just have to push through." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico:
- Gingrich on Alabama and Mississippi races: "I think we’ll win both. We're campaigning very aggressively. You start a little bit behind because of Romney's money and the length of time he's advertising."
- Rick Santorum on Mitt Romney: The frontrunner "has all the establishment behind him, has all this quote wind as his back, yet he can't close the deal, winning Ohio and winning Michigan by the skin of his teeth ...."
- Santorum on Gingrich: "I'm not going to tell people to get out of this race. I didn't tell Speaker Gingrich to get in, I'm not tell him to get out."
- Gingrich on dropping out: "We’ve caught up pretty dramatically and I think we’ll have a good day on Tuesday [but] I'm committed to going all the way to Tampa."
- Robert Gibbs on Romney's loss in Kansas: "When you’ve got the support of somebody like Bob Dole, but you don’t do that well in Kansas, you get about 21%, 22% of the vote like Mitt Romney does—I think it shows you got some real problems on the road to this nomination."
- Harry Reid on holding onto the Senate in November: "We feel really good. We've had some good fortune in North Dakota, in Massachusetts, in Nevada, in Arizona. We have my friend, Bob Kerrey, going to run in Nebraska. I feel very comfortable where we're going to wind up in November."
