It was just crazy… sitting maybe 20 yards away from KSM.   It’s clear today that the five defendants are aware, at some level, that the intention is to close Guantanamo Bay.  On Nov. 4, the five defendants  met for a so-called strategy session.  Who knew five of the worlds most despised terrorists could meet in this way??

After this meeting, right around the election, the defendants decided to write to the military commissions, telling them they want to enter their “confessions.”  There are a number of possible reasons, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that they are trying to fast track their deaths.  By telling the court they want to enter “confessions,” they are suggesting they want to be martyrs for Al Qaeda?

When the time came to enter the pleas, KSM asked if the death penalty would be in play.  The judge said he didn’t know the answer, and it was then that KSM said he would “postpone” his plea until the mental competency of two defendants is determined.  This was just an excuse.  And more evidence he wants to die.

Should the military commissions allow a self-confessed terrorist to manipulate our system so that he can be a martyr??

(The pleas were not entered today, because the judge wants to know, IF he accepts the pleas, will the death penalty still be in play.)

Here in the state capital, as soon as FOX called Ohio for Obama,  EVERYONE from the secretary of state’s office ran behind the curtain to where we believe her office is.  There has been a lot of tension here tonight. This was ground zero in the 2004 election and everyone was focused on the provisional ballots as the most likely source of litigation.

Whether it is wishful thinking, or all the networks will turn out to be wrong, the primary media contact for the state GOP in Ohio is not ready to concede.  When I reached John McClelland you could hear it was extremely busy in the room where he was, people calling over each other, and a few choice works appeared to be flying.

McClelland who has been very forward leaning with information about the race said point blank they are not ready to concede because they were over performing in many of  their counties. And he claimed that the counties yet to be counted were predominantly Republican.   His bottom line is that the number of votes being considered, so far, was just to small to make it real.

About a half hour from now we are expecting another news conference from the secretary of state where we will get the first real numbers…..

I’m sitting in the satellite truck outside the Aladdin Shrine polling center in suburban Columbus.  The Aladdin Shrine is one of the largest polling sites with 5000 registered voters.   They expect about 80% to turn out today – an astounding number which could well be replicated across the state.

What’s striking so far is what’s NOT happening.  After the trainwreck/meltdown of 2004 when machines broke down and there were record numbers of provisioal ballots, EVERYONE knew the high turnout here would put the system here in Ohio to the test.  So far, and I say so far, because alot can happen in the last few hours of the race, the lines have not appeared.

The secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, much maligned by some republicans as too partisan, told reporters this morning that the average wait across the state was just an hour.  Just an hour!  When we covered the early voting in Columbus Sunday, the lines were averaging between 3 and 4 hours.   So what is going on here?  According to some of the poll workers we’ve spoken to, the impact of early voting CANNOT be underestimated.

In this state, ground zero n the 2004 race, about 20% of the eligible voters have already cast their ballots.   We were strike by the number of first time voters (roughly 10 percent of eligible voters this time around) also students and others who just wanted to avoid the long lines of the last presidential election.

What to watch for tonight?  One republican state contact told me he will be watching the south east corner of the state.  it is Appalachia. it is where the economic direction of the candidates really matters. it is where hillary clinton steam rolled obama in the democratic primiary  A strong showing for McCain in this part of the state could suggest a strong showing over all in Ohio and not republican has gone to the whitehouse whithout winning here in Ohio.

As soon as I saw the email my heart stopped. Ever since I met Staff Sgt Joe Cox this spring, in the back of my mind, I have worried about him.

Click here to read my original blog on Sgt. Cox. >>

I met him half way through his second tour in Iraq. Cox’s story was one of the most human and powerful stories I have ever reported and you responded with hundreds of emails. Cox is trying to change Iraq “one picture at a time.”

He takes pictures of Iraqi kids, prints them out back at base, and then gives them to the kids. It maybe the only picture their family has.

Back to Cox, his mother said his stryker was hit by an IED. Here is what she wrote:

Hi Catherine:

Jo Cox here, mother of SSGT. Joseph Cox. I got a call this morning at 4am from Joseph saying that their stryker had been blown up and he want to let me and his Dad know that he was o.k.. He didn’t sound o,k, because he had a quiver in his voice. I talked to him for about 5 or 10 minutes trying to see if I could tell if anything was wrong but he kept telling me all about the other guys.

I was wondering if you got any king of news as to what happened as we don’t hear anything about Iraq anymore since it is election time. Also, our little t.v. station don’t mention anything unless one of the guys gets killed. This happened the last time he was in Iraq. Just before they got to come home, they made a thunder run and 8 of the guys got killed. I just pray that he makes it until October 6 as that is when they are schedule to come back to Germany and we are going to see him home.

Please let me know if you have heard anything. I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks,
Jo Cox

That weekend, I spent a lot of time on the phone to Germany where Cox’s team is based. I couldn’t get much information because I’m not a family member, but I persisted anyway.

I clearly rattled some cages because a few days later I got this email from Joe.

hey catherine,

heard you were asking about my accident, someone has contacted our regiment asking for permission to release my info to fox news, dont know if it was for you or now. here is what i can tell you, we were investigating possible supply routes, and hold up locations, our enginieers had cleared as much of the route as the could, then we movedthem to our secondary objective. the reason they couldnt clear the whole route is the vehicles they have to use are more prone to roll over, so we pushed further in in our stryker, it was a calculated risk, we are always aware of the danger, this is one of the few times we didnt catchthe bomb before it caught us. the specifics havent been released to us about the exact type of explosive it was yet. the only thing that matters is we were all good and cracking jokes to each other within minutes. i had a concussion and bone briuses on my left foot, we had one person with a broken foot. the stryker did its job,
it absorbed the blast and once again saved soldiers. i am less than a month out, as you know i have lost dear friends that i have worked with in the past, thisis the closest i have been or ever want to be to loosing one of the guys who work for me. we now joke with our engineers that we had to go do there job for them, but they are one brave, or crazy group of guys we try to avoid bombs they arent happy unless they are finding them. the most common thing they joke about is that we cheated them out o gettingblown up…..at least i think they are joking…. SFC Kirrkwood of the 84th engineers is the platoon sergeant for them, he was with us a few months last deployment before getting hurt and evaced back to the states, now he is here doing the same thing again thank god he hasnt got hurt this time, that is the real story here, guys who almost loose it all and still come back. once again, thank you for your concern and hope this helps”

Typical of Joe, he says he is okay, he will be back in Germany this month and he has sent me pictures of the Stryker and a little boy who they are trying to help. He was hurt in a roadside attack. The picture on the top of this blog is so striking to me. Look at the little boy’s mother smiling to the left as Cox holds her son.

I had a lot of people ask me if Joe is going to sell his pictures. He told me he is thinking about it, he’s looking into frames, and he wants to. I don’t think he understands how his pictures continue to bring so many people together. After our first story for Memorial Day, I heard from three of the families whose sons, from Cox’s unit, were killed in January 2008 when a house was booby trapped. Among them the father’s of Matt Pionk, Jon Dozier and the family of Todd Davis.

I hope you will follow the link back to the original story. Reading the comments is still so moving. Joe wanted me to pass along his thanks, the messages to him and his buddies, meant the world. And as I write this, I am struck by the power of a single picture.