As the clock ticks down to the first votes in the Republican presidential race, Newt Gingrich is declining to reject a depiction of rival Mitt Romney as a “liar” and decrying Romney's record as Massachusetts governor as anything but conservative.

Romney responded quickly, dismissing Gingrich as "very angry."

The brouhaha began after a reporter asked Gingrich to clarify comments he made on the campaign trail. Asked whether he was calling Romney "a liar" over the frontrunner’s record, Gingrich responded: "Yes. I mean, what else could you say?"

"Romney fails to tell the truth on three levels," Gingrich later told Fox News.  "He won't tell the truth about his own record; he is at Massachusetts moderate, not a conservative; he has failed to -- refused to -- tell the truth about his super PAC, which is run by his staff and funded by his millionaire friends.  And his super PAC runs ads that are just plain lies."

"Well, I understand Newt must be very angry, and I don't exactly understand why," Romney responded on Fox News after Gingrich’s initial charge.  "I know that it's always tempting to look for someone else to blame, but at some point, you've got to stop and say, OK, what things can I do better? (read more)

It was the bet heard 'round the campaign trail, but former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney insists it was just a joke.

"This was an outrageous number to answer an outrageous charge from him," Romney told Fox News on Monday,

Responding to criticism that he is "out of touch" for offering a wager of $10,000 with fellow presidential candidate Rick Perry during Saturday night's debate, Romney said maybe he shouldn't be throwing down bets, but Perry's still wrong in his assertion that that Romney supported a health insurance mandate.

"It's been proven wrong time and again, he keeps raising it, and I said, 'Ok, let's put something outrageous out there,'" Romney told Fox. "It's like saying, 'Hey, I'll bet you a million bucks X, Y, or Z.'"

He added: "Afterwards, my wife came up, She said, 'Mitt, it was a great debate. You're great at a lot of things -- just not betting,'"

Romney has drawn criticism for the remark from his fellow candidates and from Democrats, who say anyone who can float a $10,000 wager is out of touch with most Americans. (read more)

4: 15 p.m. ET UPDATE: Mitt Romney tells Fox News he informed Donald Trump he won't participate in Dec. 27 debate. 

Looks like the Donald Trump-Jon Huntsman feud won't be over anytime soon -- especially on the question of whether the Republican presidential candidate tried to meet with the real estate mogul to seek his endorsement.

"I called his office one time," Huntsman told NBC on Tuesday, "when he got out of the race -- as I did Tim Pawlenty -- just as a gesture of kindness."

But Trump says Huntsman was looking for more.

"Every candidate, virtually, has come up to my office, and they don't want my money -- they want my endorsement," Trump said on Fox and Friends Tuesday.  "He asked to come and see me. And I said, you know -- really, I just sort of turned him down in a very nice way, and now, all of a sudden, look what happens."

Huntsman also made his feelings clear on the upcoming Trump-moderated presidential debate, calling the idea "a joke." (read more)

Now that the Super Committee has failed, the blame game begins, and politicians from both sides of the aisle took to the opinion pages on Tuesday to point fingers amid growing frustration with Washington.

"I did everything possible," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in USA Today of his efforts to encourage the deficit-reduction committee to produce an economic plan. "The so-called Super Committee was unable to reach agreement because President Obama and Washington Democrats insisted on dramatic tax hikes on American job creators, which would make our economy worse."

Boehner said that Democrats rejected the GOP's tax reform proposals because they didn't include tax hikes.

But Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told a different story in a dueling op-ed in USA Today, saying that the committee stalled because Republicans refused to budge on revenue.

"Democrats were prepared to strike a grand bargain that would make painful cuts while asking millionaires to pay their fair share, and we put our willingness on paper," he said. "But Republicans never came close to meeting us halfway."

Reid also blamed extremists groups for the gridlock. (read more)

He's not on the Super Committee - he's not even a member of Congress - but Grover Norquist wants you to know that it's not his fault if the Super Committee fails.

The deficit-reduction committee is likely to announce Monday that they've failed to produce an economic plan before this week's deadline, largely because the Republican and Democrat members disagree on whether or not to raise revenues as part of the solution.

Norquist, who heads the conservative think-tank Americans for Tax Reform, has, over several years, gotten almost every Republican member of Congress to sign a pledge promising to never vote to raise taxes. Some Democratic members of the Super Committee are now blaming that pledge for the gridlock between the two parties over the tax issue.

"One of the problems has been a pledge that too many Republicans took to a Republican wealthy lobbyist by the name of Grover Norquist," Super Committee member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, told CNN. "As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do."

But Norquist said his pledge isn't to blame. (read more)

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann isn't backing down from her controversial stance on waterboarding despite being called out by President Obama over the weekend as "wrong."

Herman Cain vehemently denied allegations of inappropriate behavior on Monday, telling Fox News that he was falsely accused while head of the National Restaurant Association more than a decade ago.

"I have never sexually harassed anyone," Cain said. "I was falsely accused while I was at the National Restaurant Association -- and I say 'falsely' because it turned out, after the investigation, to be baseless."

The allegations stem from a Politico report that two women, who were subordinates to Cain at the time, accused him of inappropriate behavior and reportedly received five-figure payouts after signing an agreement with the trade association --- an agreement that also barred them from discussing the matter.  Cain was the CEO of the association from 1996-1999.

But Cain said he didn’t even know of any deals in the case. (read more)

Magazine publisher and businessman extraordinaire Steve Forbes has endorsed Gov. Rick Perry for president -- an endorsement that comes just as Perry prepares to unveil his proposal for a flat income tax rate, which Forbes says was the key to his decision.

"With firm leadership, which Rick Perry will provide -- which is why I'm endorsing him for president -- I think this will be a winning issue," Forbes told Fox News.

Forbes himself ran for president twice, and touted a flat tax plan as the centerpiece of his platform both times. (read more)

Former President George W. Bush made his feelings known on a recent study that showed only a third of post-9/11 veterans say the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were worth fighting.

"I hope history proves them wrong," Bush told Good Morning America on Monday.  "The only way for there to be peace is for free societies to emerge, and history takes awhile to unfold."

 (read more)

As the race for 2012 heats up, President Obama faces some difficult losses -- more Jewish adults disapprove of President Obama's overall performance than those who approve, according to the latest poll from the American Jewish Committee.

The annual survey found that only 45 percent of potential Jewish voters approve of Obama's job performance -- a dramatic drop from last year's 57 percent approval rating.

Forty-eight percent of respondents, by contrast, disapprove of the president's performance.

The major sticking point, according to the poll, is the economy.  A stunning 60 percent of the Jewish community said they disapprove of the way the president has handled the economy, as opposed to 37 percent who do approve. (read more)