One of the truly wonderful things about earning a living as a historian is that I get to ponder what sorts of current events are genuinely "historic," and what seem to be, in historians' terms, just run-of-the-mill elections, disasters, scandals, athletic achievements, or social movements. Like my colleagues, I'm often slow to weigh in on the affirmative side of the scale. After all, by definition all of human history took place before what just happened, and it's likely that today's breaking news, however momentous, will end up, in 10 or 20 years, as just another version of yesterday's news.

I got it quickly in 1989 when millions of nonviolent protesters in Eastern Europe dismantled Communist regimes at a dizzying pace -- and since I was teaching a course on social movements, the front page of the New York Times became our new textbook. I may have overreacted the night of Barack Obama's election in 2008, as I watched him in Grant Park, with goose bumps all over my body, and felt the hope he had called for in the campaign.

But just now, with President Obama announcing his support for marriage equality, I think we're in "history-making" territory. Not because of his own "evolution," but because of what his announcement says about the organizing power of the LGBTQ community over the past 20 years. According to Gallup, just 27 percent of Americans backed same-sex marriage in 1996. (I'd like to think I was one of them, but the truth is I don't remember when I came around myself -- I certainly didn't start there!) Now more than 50 percent do. That's social change all by itself.

But opinion alone doesn't change politicians. Organizing, political pressure, and achieved political power change politicians, from mayors to senators and presidents. "Power concedes nothing without a demand," observed the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "It never did and it never will."

Obama's public change of heart came because LGBTQ folks organized and marched and organized and acted up and organized and danced and organized and sat in and organized and demonstrated and organized and wrote checks and organized and sacrificed and organized straight people and voted and organized and married and organized. And because Obama needs them to win this election.

Given this history they have to realize that they still have a long way to go, and that a presidential decision is not enough to guarantee marriage equality in a country where 30 states have banned it. It's still an astonishing achievement. Historic, even.

The 2012 election should be about what's going on in America's boardrooms, but Republicans would rather it be about America's bedrooms.

Mitt Romney says he's against same-sex marriage; President Obama just announced his support. North Carolina voters have approved a Republican-proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters will be considering a similar amendment in November. Republicans in Maryland and Washington State are seeking to overturn legislative approval of same-sex marriage there.

Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced over four hundred bills in state legislatures aimed at limiting women's reproductive rights -- banning abortions, requiring women seeking abortions to have invasive ultra-sound tests beforehand, and limiting the use of contraceptives.

The Republican bedroom crowd doesn't want to talk about the nation's boardrooms because that's where most of their campaign money comes from. And their candidate for president has made a fortune playing board rooms like checkers.

Yet America's real problems have nothing to do with what we do in our bedrooms and everything to do with what top executives do in their boardrooms and executive suites.

We're not in trouble because gays want to marry or women want to have some control over when they have babies. We're in trouble because CEOs are collecting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, because the titans of Wall Street demand short-term results over long-term jobs, and because of a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign "donations."

Our crisis has nothing to do with private morality. It's a crisis of public morality -- of abuses of public trust that undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy and have led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.

What's truly immoral is not what adults choose to do with other consenting adults. It's what those with great power have chosen to do to the rest of us.

It is immoral that top executives are richly rewarded no matter how badly they screw up while most Americans are screwed no matter how hard they work.

Regressive Republicans have no problem intruding on the most personal and most intimate decisions any of us makes while railing against government intrusions on big business.

They don't hesitate to hurl the epithets "shameful," "disgraceful," and "contemptible" at private moral decisions they disagree with, while staying stone silent in the face of the most contemptible violations of public trust at the highest reaches of the economy.

We must protect and advance private rights of individuals over intimate bedroom decisions. We must also stop the abuses of economic power and privilege that are characterizing so many decisions in the nation's boardrooms and executive suites.

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a "total war" against the world's 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of "Hiroshima" to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the "civilian population wherever necessary."

Robert Barro, Wall Street Journal
The weak economic recovery in the U.S. and the even weaker performance in much of Europe have renewed calls for ending budget austerity and returning to larger fiscal deficits. Curiously, this plea for more fiscal expansion fails to offer any proof that Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries that chose more budget stimulus have performed better than those that opted for more austerity. Similarly, in the American context, no evidence is offered that past U.S. budget deficits (averaging 9% of GDP between 2009 and 2011) helped to promote the economic recovery.

BEIRUT, May 10 (Reuters) - Dozens of people were killed or wounded in two "terrorist explosions" which struck a southern district of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, state television said.

Television footage showed dozens of mangled, burnt and smouldering vehicles, some containing incinerated human remains. A large crater could be seen in the road and at least one lorry had been overturned.

Damascus residents said the two explosions, which happened almost simultaneously shortly before 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), struck a district of Damascus which houses a military intelligence complex involved in President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on 14 months of protests. (Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Adults who want sex-change surgery or hormone therapy in Argentina will be able to get it as part of their public or private health care plans under a gender rights law approved Wednesday.

The measure also gives people the right to specify how their gender is listed at the civil registry when their physical characteristics don't match how they see themselves.

Senators approved the Gender Identity law by a vote of 55-0, with one abstention and more than a dozen senators declaring themselves absent – the same margin that approved a "death with dignity" law earlier in the day.

President Cristina Fernandez threw her support behind the law and is expected to sign it. She has often said how proud she is that Argentina became Latin America's first nation to legalize gay marriage two years ago, enabling thousands of same-sex couples to wed and enjoy the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples.

For many, gender rights were the next step.

Any adult will now be able to officially change his or her gender, image and birth name without having to get approval from doctors or judges – and without having to undergo physical changes beforehand, as many U.S. jurisdictions require.

"It's saying you can change your gender legally without having to change your body at all. That's unheard of," said Katrina Karkazis, a Stanford University medical anthropologist and bioethicst who wrote a book, "Fixing Sex," about the medical and legal treatment of people whose physical characteristics don't fully match their gender identity.

"There's a whole set of medical criteria that people have to meet to change their gender in the U.S., and meanwhile this gives the individual an extraordinary amount of authority for how they want to live. It's really incredible," she said.

When Argentines want to change their bodies, health care companies will have to provide them with surgery or hormone therapy on demand. Such treatments will be included in the "Obligatory Medical Plan," which means both private and public providers will not be able to charge extra for the services.

"This law is going to enable many of us to have light, to come out of the darkness, to appear," said Sen. Osvaldo Lopez of Tierra del Fuego, the only openly gay national lawmaker in Argentina.

"There are many people in our country who also deserve the power to exist," Lopez said.

Children also get a voice under the law: Youths under 18 who want to change their genders gain the right to do so with the approval of their legal guardians. But if parents or guardians want a gender identity change and don't have the child's consent, then a judge must intervene to ensure the child's rights are protected.

Argentina need not worry about vast numbers of people demanding sex changes, Karkazis predicted.

"This isn't going to create a huge demand on the national health system for these procedures. They're difficult, painful, irreversible. And this is why many people don't do it," she said.

But because the law says people can legally change their identities without having to undergo genital surgery or hormone therapy, these changes can be more benign and even reversible, if some day the person's self-image changes.

Other countries, including neighboring Uruguay, have passed gender rights laws, but Argentina's "is in the forefront of the world" because of these benefits it guarantees, said Cesar Cigliutti, president of the Homosexual Community of Argentina.

"This is truly a human right: the right to happiness," Sen. Miguel Pichetto said during the debate.

President Obama's stand today in support of gay marriage has unleashed much conversation surrounding the political impact of his statement and the effect it could have on the electoral map and election this November. And part of this discussion has repeated a myth that I have tried to dispel before and will try again.

The gay marriage initiatives in 2004 on the ballot in 11 states had no discernable effect on turnout among conservatives. Yes, that's right, none. Not even in Ohio, which was a swing state in 2004, won in a close contest by former President Bush.

Today, the myth is repeated over and over that Bush beat Kerry in Ohio in part because of the gay marriage initiative on the ballot. The facts and data simply do not support that conclusion. Yes, conservative turnout was up in Ohio by five percentage points. It was also up five percentage points nationally. And if you look at the conservative turnout increase in the 11 states verses the other 39 states that didn't have gay marriage on the ballot, the conservative turnout was up exactly the same.

Further, if you look at white evangelical and conservative turnout in swing states with gay marriage initiatives versus swing states without them (such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Nevada), again, there is no statistical difference in turnout increases among these groups. Yes, that is right, increase in turnout among key conservative groups did not vary between swing states with and without these initiatives on the ballot.

In 2004, I worked on President Bush's campaign as chief strategist and was deeply involved in examining and determining which issues would motivate conservatives and evangelicals. In all that analysis preparing for the campaign, not a single social issue rose to the top five motivators (not abortion, not gay marriage, not a one). The motivators for that election were national security issues, issues concerning the budget and taxes, and issues surrounding the economy. And these are the issues the campaign put all their resources behind and I constantly advocated internally as our focus.

So again, let's put this myth to rest. Gay marriage initiatives in 2004 did not affect the turnout among conservative voters in any way. It's important as analysts for us to look at the data as it stands and try not to repeat myths just because either side promulgates them over and over to serve their purposes.

Cross-posted from ABC News.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman but that states should decide whether it's legal for same-sex couples to marry.

The Nevada Democrat says he believes that people should marry whomever they want, and that, in his words, "it's no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married."

Reid says his children and grandchildren already take marriage equality as a given and that their view is a glimpse of the future.

Reid's home state of Nevada voted to ban gay marriage in 2002.

Reid's comments came in a statement Wednesday after President Barack Obama became the first president to endorse same-sex marriage.

Charles Mahtesian, Politico
So how did a felon incarcerated in a Texas prison manage to win 41 percent of the Democratic primary vote against the president of the United States?For starters, Keith Judd was either clever or lucky enough to have filed for the ballot in the heart of Appalachia's anti-Obama belt.West Virginia's county-by-county numbers tell an interesting story: Judd defeated the incumbent president in 9 counties across the state, and held him under 60 percent in 30 of West Virginia's 55 counties.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Donnelly says he didn’t vote for Pelosi for Speaker

Democrat Joe Donnelly, who will face a tea party-backed candidate in Indiana’s U.S. Senate contest, is having to answer questions about his political loyalties -- specifically to Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader who is a lightning rod of conservative criticism. Indiana’s Republican Party Chairman, Eric Holcomb, linked Donnelly’s politics to Pelosi’s following an Indiana Democratic Party fundraiser headlined by Pelosi on May 5, 2012. "Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi – they all have one thing in common and that is records that are out of step with Indiana," Holcomb said, according ...

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Reps. McKeon & Ryan, RCP
Last year, as the federal government approached a limit on how much it could legally borrow, the Obama administration asked Congress to rubber-stamp an increase in the government's borrowing authority without any spending cuts to match.When House Republicans made clear that any increase in the debt limit must be accompanied by an even greater amount of spending reduction, the President insisted that he would not accept a debt-limit deal that did not include large tax increases on American families and businesses.All of this work was made more difficult by the Senate's failure to...

Reps. McKeon & Ryan, RCP
Last year, as the federal government approached a limit on how much it could legally borrow, the Obama administration asked Congress to rubber-stamp an increase in the government's borrowing authority without any spending cuts to match.When House Republicans made clear that any increase in the debt limit must be accompanied by an even greater amount of spending reduction, the President insisted that he would not accept a debt-limit deal that did not include large tax increases on American families and businesses.All of this work was made more difficult by the Senate's failure to...

As predicted, North Carolina voters approved an amendment to the state's constitution declaring that "marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state." On the surface, this is just another vote to prohibit same-sex marriage. Most of those who voted for Amendment 1 were motivated by the fear that their own marriages would be demeaned if we let same-sex couples into the club. They're incensed that gays and lesbians enjoy more legal protections and greater visibility nationally than ever before.

But the battle in North Carolina also indicates that conservative strategists are beginning to shift gears, casting a wider net, and targeting unrepentant, unmarried heterosexual couples, too. In a state that already prohibits same-sex marriage, it adds prohibitions against civil unions and domestic partnerships, which are theoretically open to heterosexual couples who choose to live together outside marriage, as well as to gays and lesbians. More than 150,000 straight, unmarried couples live in the state, some of whom could certainly benefit from those protections. Now, that's unlikely to happen.

What is so scary to social conservatives is the fact that as gays and lesbians are becoming just like us (they even have families now!), we straight people are becoming more and more like them. That what's behind the attack on domestic partnerships in North Carolina. It's an attempt to draw a line in the sand between us and them. We ("real" men and women) commit to one another for the long haul, they declare. They (gays and lesbians, and straights who live together without a marriage license) are only playing at marriage. They're diminishing that sacred institution, they say.

Today, as divorce rates rise and more and more people come to live alone, increasingly, it seems, "all of our families are queer," as sociologist Judith Stacey has put it. Gays and lesbians have long argued that "love makes a family," that family should not be based narrowly on blood, nor on assumptions of permanence, but on our capacity for caring, and on the quality of relationships.

For better and for worse, more and more families are looking precisely like that. Intimate relationships are becoming more individually oriented, and more fluid. The "till death do us part" model of marriage is weaker than ever. For many people, of all sexual orientations, this is a welcome change, bringing greater personal freedom, the end of shotgun marriages, and less stigma for those who remain single, or who shack up.

But for others it's scary stuff. They see marriage as our best hope for getting people out of poverty, guaranteeing emotional security, and keeping the nation strong. By supporting Amendment 1, they are trying to draw a line in the sand and declare that marriage should be the powerful institution it once was.

Anti-gay campaigners in North Carolina successfully capitalized on the unease that many people feel. They tapped into fears that people have about losing economic security and a family structure that once seemed relatively stable. And they've convinced people that changes in family life are causing their insecurities.

But by denying protections to those who choose not to marry members of the opposite sex, or those who choose not to marry altogether, they're failing to attack the problem at its core. The only way to effectively address the root causes of family insecurity is to guarantee social supports such as child care and jobs that provide a living wage. If conservatives truly want to save the family, that's what they should be pushing for.

Sean Sullivan, National Journal
The tea party, an unsteady movement that was beginning to resemble a wayward ship in 2012, found its north star in Indiana on Tuesday night. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, a victory owing to the incumbent's inept campaign, the outside groups that lashed him on the air, and a story about his out-of-state residency that would not go away. But well before those issues got a foothold, a grassroots-driven, local movement to unseat Lugar was well under way.

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of pieces of security equipment that cost taxpayers an estimated $184 million and were supposed to be installed at airport checkpoints to screen passengers are collecting dust in government warehouses, a joint congressional panel reported Wednesday.

"Airport Insecurity: TSA’s Failure to Cost-Effectively Procure, Deploy and Warehouse its Screening Technologies" details how 85 percent of about 5,700 security units is warehoused at a Transportation Security Administration facility in Dallas. Annual storage costs at the Transportation Logistics Center, the report noted, top $3.5 million annually.

The investigative report was produced by the Republican staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired By Rep. Darrell Issa of California, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, headed by Rep. John Mica of Florida.

“TSA continues to demonstrate its penchant for bungling aviation security and wasting taxpayers’ money," Mica said at a hearing on the report Wednesday. "The CIA uncovered terrorists’ latest modified underwear bomb plot, but TSA has repeatedly failed to effectively procure and deploy screening equipment that actually detects threats, and incredible amounts of its state-of-the-art technology is gathering dust in Texas warehouses. Significant reform is necessary to transform this bloated and inefficient bureaucracy into the effective security agency it needs to be.”

"Money spent on equipment sitting in a warehouse in excess is money not spent on the front lines,” said Issa. "This is not a security operation, but rather a recipe for waste and abuse.”

According to the committee's report, as of Feb. 15, 2012:

• About 85 percent of the approximately 5,700 pieces of security equipment was stored for longer than six months; 35 percent had been stored for more than one year. One piece of equipment had been in storage more than six years.

• There were 472 carry-on baggage screening machines in the warehouse, 34 percent of which had been stored for longer than a year.

• The committee estimated the delayed deployment of TSA equipment "has resulted in a massive depreciated loss of equipment utility at an estimated cost to taxpayers of nearly $23 million."

• TSA had 1,462 explosive-trace detectors worth nearly $44 million in storage, far more than it could use in the 463 airports where TSA provides screening operations. When asked why the agency bought so many, agency officials said they needed that many in order to get a discount.

The 22-page committee report said the TSA "intentionally delayed Congressional oversight of the Transportation Logistics Center (TLC) and provided inaccurate, incomplete, and potentially misleading information to Congress in order to conceal the agency’s continued mismanagement of warehouse operations." It said the TLC tried to hide roughly 1,300 pieces of screening equipment from congressional investigators and provided staffers with a list of disposed items "that falsely identified disposal dates and directly contradicted the inventory of equipment" in a report to committee staff.

The committee made a series of recommendations to TSA aimed at ensuring equipment is actually needed before it is purchased.

A call requesting comment from the TSA was not immediately returned.

In prepared testimony to the joint hearing, TSA Chief Financial Officer David Nicholson, said the agency "must be able to rapidly deploy technology to respond to changing threat information, or to have equipment ready to deploy when airport facilities are changed to accommodate the equipment." He said the need to factor in future need with companies' manufacturing schedules "generally led TSA to procure equipment ahead of deployment so that the equipment is immediately available when the airport is ready."

WASHINGTON -- Dick Lugar was a nice guy who stayed too long. But his crushing loss is also a valid data point in a profound and troubling trend, obvious not only in politics but in every other aspect of American life.

We are losing the mediating middle of everything, and the result is a country paralyzed by social and economic as well as political division.

The remorseless logic of global capital (think: big banks and super PACs) and the middleman-crushing power of the Internet (think: Amazon and the Tea Party) are combining to end not only the "small r" republican vision of the Founders but also many essential, intermediating business and social structures.

The Founders feared both the Monarch and the Mob. Now the salving, balancing middle is being ground to dust between the two.

Like an engine without oil or a knee without cartilage, we are in danger of seizing up. We are losing many of our lesser but essential sources of authority, credit, guidance, service and judgment. Face-to-face dealings, accidental acquaintances, the happenstances of geography and commerce are being replaced by a net-based cacophony of political flash mobs, stovepiped thinking and mail-order trade for virtually every product and service.

A partial list of who is under pressure: families with time to be a family, independent-minded elected representatives, small farmers not beholden to Monsanto or Cargill, county chairmen, "big tent" politics, independent business and sales agents, weekly newspapers, local radio and TV stations, teachers with freedom to teach, principals with latitude to run their schools, local religious leaders respected for their character and judgment.

In politics, the national parties have ceased to be mechanisms of consensus or even mechanisms at all. The power resides entirely with ideological, commercial or personal money.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, two cool, aloof, effective assemblers of the new machinery, rely entirely on their own purpose-built campaigns, which have allegiance to no one but them.

Congress is now a home for the politically incapacitated. Senators who once had a year or two to attempt statesmanship and independent thought begin running for reelection even before they are sworn in.

As for the media, the days are long gone when a news anchor like Walter Cronkite could end his broadcast by saying, "And that's the way it is," and most people in the country would nod in agreement. There are no such truly unifying figures today, and most of the money in televised news is spent on ideologically discrete presentations of it.

The Internet makes possible the assembly of new intermediating institutions, but those are still in their infancy for the most part. In the meantime, mighty and basically unaccountable companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and others conduct, facilitate and dominate monarch-to-mob-and-back commerce.

To fend off both the monarchy and the mob, the Founders resurrected the Roman ideal of republican government, updated with a Newtonian clockwork of countervailing powers. They saw further protection against political tyranny in an economy of widely dispersed private property -- the ideal for them was the English yeomanry -- and in a rich social soil of education, family and homage to faith that would produce solid citizens.

Today, the Monarchy isn't a Hanoverian in a dusty wig, but rather a silent alliance between an all-knowing, all-benefit-dispensing Washington and billionaires (real people or corporate "people") given new freedom to exert their power by spending at will.

Today, the Mob isn't a witch hunt in Salem, but rather an Internet increasingly ruled by the worship of the viral and made profitable largely by companies that specialize in the Schumpeterian work of wiping out social supply lines of local human interaction with generations or even millennia of tradition.

The risk is that in the name of democracy, we are going to destroy it; that in the name of freedom, we are going to lose it; and that in the name of bringing the budget under control and saving the middle class, we are going to lose both to the Monarchy and the Mob.

Other than that, things are going fine.

I think we hit a watershed moment in President Obama's relations with the gay community last night. Yes, he has done several great things in terms of LGBT rights, from repealing "don't ask, don't tell" to having the federal government no longer defend DOMA in the courts. However, the events of the last week, culminating with last night's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in North Carolina, have altered the landscape, and now it's time to view our president's never-ending "evolution" on gay marriage differently.

Before I go any further, let me be clear: I don't like Mitt Romney. I wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney in a million years. Mitt Romney is no ally of the gay community. But I believe that in some cases, perhaps most importantly in cases such as the presidency of the United States, we shouldn't use the lowest common denominator when asking questions of our leaders. (I had to throw that in there before anyone thought I was joining GOProud today.)

Last week a couple of things happened. We all know about Joe Biden saying he was comfortable with gay marriage on Meet the Press. Then David Axelrod and company immediately started parsing Biden's words and implying that that wasn't exactly what he'd said, and that Biden actually believes the same thing that the president believes. (Watch the video. That's not what he said.) Then the media fell all over itself trying to defend President Obama, explaining that he really does believe in gay marriage, but that it's too risky a political position in an election year. I always find it fascinating how members of the media seem to know something about Obama that he himself won't say. However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that they know that the president is for gay marriage but is just playing politics here. And therein lies the problem.

We voted for Obama on rhetoric of "hope and change." We voted for him because of some idea that he was beyond politics and certainly beyond partisanship. We voted for him because this idea felt so transformative and powerful that it made it seem like he was truly above it all and that we would come for the fantastic ride. But this whole gay marriage thing has proven that he is nothing more than a politician. (Perhaps this is simply what the office of the presidency does to you.) If he is in fact waiting for reelection to push gay marriage, then it is the worst kind of pandering politics being played here. And how do we know that he'll make good on the promise he isn't even making? Surely the Republicans will have plenty of other things over which to fight with him that will give him plenty of excuses to kick the can down the road.

This actually reminds me of the whole business with super PACs. The president railed against big money in his first campaign and then in office said he'd never take super-PAC money. But instead of doing something about campaign finance, he did nothing until fourth year of his term, when he "had" to take super-PAC money, too. Sometimes inaction is worse than action.

Last night my Twitter feed was an endless stream of disappointment with North Carolinians, the political system itself, and, yes, even the president. If gay people give him unending, undivided support, then he actually owes us less in the long run. Pushing and pulling him on the single most important issue to us until he is brave enough to evolve seems like a much more practical and sensible approach. Otherwise, we're just a bunch of people who give him a ton of money and, unlike everyone else, don't expect a full return on it. Then we're just hoping and maybe or maybe not getting change.

I've jokingly called him "President Homobama" on my radio show a few times, because he has been so pro-gay. Well, Mr. President, it's time you earned your title back.

WASHINGTON -- Support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a new low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the effort and about half of those who oppose the war saying the continued presence of American troops in Afghanistan is doing more harm than good, according to an AP-GfK poll.

In results released Wednesday, 66 percent opposed the war, with 40 percent saying they were "strongly" opposed. A year ago, 37 percent favored the war, and in the spring of 2010, support was at 46 percent. Eight percent strongly supported the war in the new poll.

The poll found that far fewer people than last year think the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops increased the threat of terrorism against Americans. Overall, 27 percent say the al-Qaida leader's death resulted in an increased terror threat, 31 percent believe his death decreased the threat of terrorism and 38 percent say it has had no effect. The poll was conducted before the revelation this week of a recent al-Qaida plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner with an underwear bomb.

Chris Solomon, an independent from Fuquay-Varina, N.C., is among the respondents who strongly oppose the war. He said the military mission has reached the limits of its ability to help Afghans or make Americans any safer, and he would close down the war immediately if he could. While the rationale for the war is to fight al-Qaida, most of the day-to-day combat is against an entrenched Taliban insurgency that will outlast the foreign fighters, he said.

"What are we really doing there? Who are we helping?" he said in an interview.

Yet nearly half, 48 percent, said the continued presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is doing more to help Afghanistan become a stable democracy, while 36 percent said the opposite and 14 percent said they didn't know. Among those opposed to the war, 49 percent say U.S. troops are hurting more than helping. Three-quarters of those who favor the war think they are doing more to help.

Republicans are most apt to see U.S. forces as helping, with 56 percent saying so, followed by 47 percent of Democrats. Among independents, more say troops are hurting Afghanistan's efforts to become a stable democracy (43 percent) than helping (32 percent).

President Barack Obama has promised to keep fighting forces in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, despite the declining popular support. The effort to hand off primary responsibility for fighting the war to Afghan soldiers will be the main focus of a gathering of NATO leaders that Obama will host later this month in Chicago.

That shift away from front-line combat is expected to come next year, largely in response to growing opposition to the war in the United States and among NATO allies fighting alongside about 88,000 U.S. forces. The shift makes some military commanders uneasy, as does any suggestion that the U.S. fighting force be cut rapidly next year. Obama has promised a steady drawdown.

Obama acknowledged the rising frustration during a surprise visit to Afghanistan last week. He signed a 10-year security pact with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and congratulated U.S. troops on the anniversary of bin Laden's death. He told troops that he is ending the war but that more of their friends will die before it is over.

"I recognize that many Americans are tired of war," he said then. "I will not keep Americans in harm's way a single day longer than is absolutely required for our national security. But we must finish the job we started in Afghanistan and end this war responsibly."

As of Tuesday, at least 1,834 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count.

Obama has argued that his persistence in hunting down bin Laden is one reason to re-elect him, and his on-time handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is another.

Obama closed down the Iraq war on the timetable set when he took office and expanded the Afghan fight that had been neglected in favor of Iraq. He is now scaling back in Afghanistan, bringing troops home by the tens of thousands. A small U.S. counterterrorism and training force may remain in the country after 2014.

But in a trend that complicates discussion of the war in this year's presidential campaign, support for the war is plummeting even among Republicans. People who identified themselves as Republicans backed the war at 37 percent, down from 58 percent a year ago.

Among Democrats, support dropped from 30 percent last year to 19 percent now. About a quarter, 27 percent, of independents favor the effort, similar to the level last year.

The war, which will be in its 12th year on Election Day in November, has an inconclusive balance sheet at best.

It has brought greater security to many parts of the impoverished country strategically situated between Iran and Pakistan, and largely flushed the al-Qaida terror network from its former training ground.

But the war has failed to break the Taliban-led insurgency or pressure the insurgents to begin serious peace negotiations with the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The civilian government has not capitalized on the elbow room that more than 100,000 foreign fighting forces provided to build up its own ability to govern the entire country and push the Taliban to the political fringe.

Obama was hosting NATO's top officer at the White House on Wednesday to finalize the agenda for NATO leaders. They are trying to show that NATO nations are committed to keep fighting now but will stick to the plan agreed at the last leaders' summit in 2010 to end the war by 2015. But the summit will be a national security debut for France's new Socialist leader, Francois Hollande, who has vowed to pull French troops out by the end of this year. That's two years earlier than the rest of the alliance has pledged.

Slightly more than half of Americans, 53 percent, said they approve of Obama's handling of the war, while 42 percent disapprove. Obama hit a high mark in AP-GfK polling on that question a year ago, just after the killing of bin Laden. Then, 65 percent said they approved of his handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

The poll showed 64 percent approve of Obama's handling of terrorism issues, and 31 percent disapprove.

Elizabeth Kabalka of Chattanooga, Tenn., said she somewhat approves of the war and is generally pleased by Obama's handling of it. An independent voter, she said Obama is doing about as well managing the war as anyone could.

"He's got a really crappy job," she said. "I've been pleased with him. He's really tried to stick to a position."

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted May 3-7 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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On Tuesday, North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment that defines marriage exclusively between a man and a woman, making North Carolina the 30th state to pass such a ban same-sex marriage.

The Associated Press reported:

In the final days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama's cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to oppose the amendment.

Supporters of the amendment responded with marches, television ads and speeches, including one by Jay Bakker, son of late televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. The Rev. Billy Graham was featured in full-page newspaper ads backing the amendment.

North Carolina law already bans gay marriage, but an amendment effectively seals the door on same-sex marriages.

The amendment also goes beyond state law by voiding other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status, which opponents warn could disrupt protection orders for unmarried couples.

Unsurprisingly, Tuesday's vote immediately inspired strong reactions. Below, a look at how politicians, gay rights groups and others weighed in on the measure's passage:

Naomi Schaefer Riley, WSJ
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