BIN LADEN SPEAKS

Posted at 4:21 p.m. ET

The terror master greets the administration of Barack Obama with some well-chosen words.  ABC News reports:

In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden questions whether America "is capable to keep fighting us for more years" in a new audio message attributed to him Wednesday morning on an internet website.

A senior U.S. official told ABCNews.com, "There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape."

Bin Laden is picking up on a favorite theme of the political left - that we're an exhausted nation.  It is a theme of those who want us to lose.

Today's message begins with a call for a jihad against Israel because of its attacks on Gaza but concludes with a challenge to the U.S., and implicitly the incoming Obama administration.

"Now America is begging the world for money," bin Laden says, "and the USA will not be as powerful as it used to be."

Our response must be defiance, even if that offends the Daily Kos.

"The majority of the U.S. people are happy to get rid of Bush, Bush left for his successor a heavy heritage, the hardest part of heritage is guerilla wars," bin Laden says.

Guess he's feeling the heat from those missiles we fire just inside Pakistan.

During the campaign, Obama said the capture or death of bin Laden, and the defeat of al Qaeda, would be one of his administration's highest priorities.

We wish every success.

January 14, 2009.