President Obama Speaks at the Associated Press Luncheon

More like this, please. Watch the whole thing if you have an hour.

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Obama Closing Gitmo - UPDATED

CNN reports that Barack Obama has issued a draft order to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. More to follow.

UPDATE (12:40pm):

Associated Press: A draft executive order has been readied for President Obama that would close Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year, the Associated Reports.

The AP, which says it has obtained a copy of the draft order, says it would also declare a halt to all trials currently under way at the facility, where roughly 800 detainees.

UPDATE (1/22/09 4:30pm):

PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer: Obama closing Guantanamo as he reshapes US policy

Al-Qaeda Endorses McCain

Fresh off the heels of Colin Powell's ringing endorsement of Barack Obama comes this interesting little tidbit of information:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

Now, we really don't care what Al-Qaeda thinks and I'm taking this news with a grain of salt because had it been the other way around, I'd probably feel the same way and I'm really trying to be objective, but isn't it obvious that if we keep depleting our resources (military, treasury, our economy in the tank) that a continuaiton of the war, which is what a McCain presidency would bring us, would have the effect that Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden wanted in the first place? Isn't that why they targeted the WORLD TRADE Center? Hit them in the pocketbook is always a knock out blow.

I'm guessing the McCain campaign will try to spin this as a scare tactic by the "liberal" media who is obviously in the tank for Obama, or just blame the Obama campaign - they blame everything else on them so I'm not expecting anything different - but we'll find out soon enough.

Who Is Charles Babington?

Is this what passes for reporting from the Associated Press? Just minutes after Obama's amazing and historic speech that even had Pat Buchanan gushing on MSNBC, an AP hack named Charles Babington wrote this:

Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean."
But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent.
Of course, no candidate can outline every initiative in a 35-minute speech - especially one that also must inspire voters, acknowledge key friends, and toss in some autobiography for the newly-interested. And Obama did touch on nitty-gritty subjects, such as the capital gains tax and biofuel investments.
He said he would "find ways to safely harness nuclear power," a somewhat more receptive phrase than he typically uses for that subject.
But most of his address echoed and amplified the theme that dominated the four-day
Democratic nominating convention here: George Bush.

And it seems that Babington didn't even listen to the speech, opting to critique it (and badly mind you) by reading the advance press release since his 603-word piece was turned in only 26 minutes after the speech was over. Still, the false accusations that it was all-style -no-substance is laughable at best, spine chillingly conspiratorial at worst. Here's Jonathan Singer an MyDD:

What a true journalist would do would be to analyze the speech without using the crutch of opposition talking points, without resorting to the easiest "he said, she said" type of stenography. But apparently this is no longer the policy of the Associated Press under Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier -- a man, by the way, who spent months in talks with the McCain campaign about possibly accepting a senior level position. No, what we get out of Fournier's AP is pure and unadulterated talking points that are as non germane as they are simply incorrect.

And Keith Olbermann's reaction after reading the report:

Mr. Babington got the length of the speech wrong by at least 7 minutes. And this is analysis that will be printed in many, many newspapers, hundreds of them around the country. It is analysis that strikes me as having born no resemblance to the speech you and I just watch. None whatsoever. And for it to be distributed by the lone national news organization in terms of wire copy to newspapers around the country and websites is a remarkable failure of that news organization.Charles Babington. Find. New. Work.

So, not only does Obama have to fight the Republican Party lies and smears over the next two months, it seems he'll have to fight the press-posing right-wing noise machine as well. Game on, brohim.

(H/T Daily Kos & My DD)