A federal judge appointed by President Bush has ordered that five Algerian enemy combatants be released from Guantanamo Bay prison saying that for seven years they waited for the legal system to give them an answer. It is about time. A sixth suspect was ordered held because the government said it had enough evidence to prove he had ties to Al Qaeda.

The idea that America has held people for seven years without a trial is something that Americans cannot be proud of. Many people have died for our freedoms and our system of justice.

Let these men have their lives back and let this be a lesson to the Bush administration that there is a real system in place for justice.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon asked that the government refrain from trying to appeal the decision. He is right. He has listened to the classified evidence and he has clearly seen enough of “trial by law enforcement” and not by the courts.

Judge Leon is not a liberal “activist” judge but a student of our system of laws who believes in the system. Let these men have their lives back and let this be a lesson to the Bush administration that there is a real system in place for justice. It prevailed today, albeit very late.

President-elect Obama is ready for the job and his first post-election television interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” showed just how ready he is. He came off as confident but not arrogant, funny but firm and in control of his message but interactive at the same time.

It was clear that he was a very careful thinker and very deliberate.  He was having fun with his wife and they looked like any American couple who don’t always agree but clearly love each other.

From the closing of Gitmo to the auto industry we can expect the President-elect to keep his promises to the extent that he can in this economy. The country elects the person they want in their living rooms for the next four years and his interview on Sunday shows a man who is very comfortable with who he is. He is also very likeable. We have seen some great communicators as presidents in the last fifty years; Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton all come to mind. If this interview is a glimpse of what we will see in the next four years then we can surely expect to see President Obama to be added to that list.

President-elect Barack Obama should move forward with his agenda right now in the form of a public works project. He is still a sitting senator and he can introduce legislation when the Senate comes back for a lame duck session. I would suggest writing legislation that would put $300 billion dollars into jobs such as repairing bridges, schools and roads. There is also a real need to improver our infrastructure by laying fiber optic cable. This would go in the category of President Bush’s budget and not President-elect Obama’s budget. Mr. Obama could bring Republicans into the fold by making sure that projects took place in red as well as blue Congressional districts and by allowing non-union workers to apply for these jobs.

President-elect Barack Obama won because he provided a vision and a hope in one of the toughest times. He offered another direction. Senator Obama also ran a perfect campaign understanding the newest technology and using it. He brought back good old-fashioned grass roots, person-to-person contact.

Senator McCain said nothing new. It was like he and the GOP were in a contest to see who could be the most stale in their outlook and lack of excitement. The American people are tired and feel like they are on a treadmill. Mean spirited campaigning is not working right now. We also have had a demographic age shift and Senator Obama touched those new voters.

Today, Election Day, is sheer anxiety, anticipation and exhaustion.

After the 2004 election I said, ‘never again.’ But this election was too interesting and I had to report on it. There was no clear heir apparent in either party so it was never dull.

For me, the campaign for me really began with the Iowa caucuses and then the “radio row” at the New Hampshire Primary. It has not stopped for the entire year.

The Low Points

I think the low point was finding out about Senator Edward’s affair and just my continued amazement at how stupid and low politicians can go.

The High Points

The high point was Senator Obama’s nomination speech. It was my birthday and having lived in Memphis in 1965 and ‘66 I never thought I would see the day a black man would lead a political party with the possibility of becoming president.

My other high point was at the New Bedford, Massachusetts Zoo where female illusionist Lyn Dillies made an elephant and a donkey appear out of thin air for a “Get out the Vote Drive.” I got to kiss the elephant.

The great thing about covering these elections is that you see all your friends from Washington and the media except that everyone moves around and you see them in other locations. It is also a fun time to swap stories and gossip. And now, we all look forward to catching up on some much needed sleep.

Everything about this worked. From the title “American Stories, American Solutions,” to the narration and declarations made by Senator Obama, it came together and made his case for the presidency. While Governor Sarah Palin went on the attack today, trying to get Americans to believe that Senator Obama has ties to a law professor Governor Palin claims was a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Authority, Senator Obama took the high road.

A winning candidate must be in tune enough with voters to be invited into their living rooms for the next four years. By hitting on themes that are at the heart of what voters want,  such as restoring fairness, rebuilding the military and making college affordable, he was able to close the deal. The McCain camp will attack the discrepancy on the tax cut issue. If that is all they have than they will be the losing party on Tuesday.

The tape of Barack Obama’s interview on Chicago Public Radio from 2001 is very clear. Barack Obama did not say he advocated for the redistribution of wealth. He discussed the role of the Supreme Court historically on this issue. He also talked about civil rights and “redistribution” but he was clearly referring to rights not wealth.

The civil rights movement was about a redistribution of power and allowing those who had no power to get some. This is simply a tactic that the anti-Obama forces had been planning, and they waited until the last week before the election to leak this information to The Drudge Report and others in an attempt to derail the Obama campaign. This is yet another campaign tactic that won’t work.

Whoever is making decisions for the McCain-Palin campaign should think about another profession. The mistakes just keep piling on. This week was highlighted by the Palin wardrobe costs. No one disputes that a candidate has to look good and professional but you can “dress for success” at about one fifteenth of what the Republican National Committee spent.

Then instead of hitting hard on the economy the McCain-Palin campaign continues to beat the Bill Ayers drum. Today, the campaign put out a press release on Obama’s ACORN connections. At just about the same time the Republican National Committee put out a release on Obama’s “connections” to the “radical civil group” Moveon.org. Even if both releases were not slanted it is quite astounding that the McCain-Palin campaign has decided on this strategy.

Do they really think they can move the undecided voter with negative attacks? Do they believe that the independent voter is going to come to the McCain-Palin ticket in this economic climate?

The only thing that would work for them is to use the Internet and robo calls to give Americans hope that they have a solid economic plan, instead the McCain-Palin campaign is giving voters who don’t like Obama a reason to stay on home election day.

Ohio Secretary of State Brunner knew that she was on the right side of the law when she appealed to the Supreme Court on voter verification.

She had been up against a deadline to provide the local election clerks with the names of voters whose registration application do not match social security numbers or other government data. — The time element was the issue here. This is from the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). My colleague, former Congressman Bob Ney, was one of the main authors of HAVA. He helped to mandate provisional voting so that people can vote and then the ballot can be questioned later. It makes it so people are not turned away at the polls. Ballots cannot be dismissed on election day.

This whole suit was filed by the Ohio Republican Party. They are terrified that the Great State of Ohio is going to go for Obama. Some of the new registrations were from two predominantly African-American colleges. The local sheriff said he was “personally” looking into illegal registrations. The Republicans have been trying to convince the rest of America that Ohio is full of registration fraud. That has yet to be proven and there is NO evidence that there is any systematic registration crime. Obviously, the Supreme Court agrees.

When I grew up in Ohio we used to love to pick up acorns from the beautiful trees. It was fun to find them and leave them on the porch for the squirrels. They would come get their potential meals and they were quite a sight to see moving their bushy tails.  This year it is the Republicans who are trying to pick up ACORN(s) and instead of feeding them to the squirrels they are trying to feed them to a public who is scared and perhaps undecided in this election.

There have been accusations all around. Today Ohio Senator George Voinovich wrote a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking him to investigate any allegations of fraud in Ohio’s voter registration process. Senator Voinovich said that representatives from ACORN are saying that voter registration ” cannot be fraud free.” That happens to be a true statement.  Anyone who has ever done voter registration knows that people signing up in front of grocery stores can try and game the system. However, there is a VAST difference in registration fraud and voter fraud, which is why we have county clerks. County clerks have extensive experience in voter registration and  are
responsible for accurate voter rolls.

But there is another side to this as well. ACORN sent a letter to Senator McCain yesterday concerned about voters who have lost their homes due to foreclosure are then are losing their voting rights by
being taken off the voter rolls. A ballot can always be refused on voting day but if you have been dumped from the voting roles than what do you do? ACORN calls on Senator McCain to ask his supporters to take steps to protect these former homeowners right to vote. Let’s hope they support this call from ACORN instead of feeding the undecided voters a lot of scare tactics about ACORN.