The Slate Political Gabfest goes live in Philadelphia on May 27!! Get your tickets here.

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there.

Listen to the Gabfest for May 21 by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

You can download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.

Get your free 14-day trial membership of Gabfest sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audio book. Listener Henrik Hansen recommends John le Carre's Call for the Dead and The Honourable Schoolboy. You'll find links to this and previous Gabfest recommendations on our new Audible RSS feed.

On this week's Slate Political Gabfest, John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon, and David Plotz discuss primary election results, the political climate heading into midterm elections, and the controversy over Richard Blumenthal's claims about his Vietnam War service.

Here are some of the links and references mentioned during this week's show:

The New York Times piece on Richard Blumenthal.
The XX Gabfest podcast discussion of Rep. Mark Souder.
Emily chatters about the Supreme Court ruling on life without parole for juveniles.
David chatters about his trip to see a NASA shuttle launch.
John chatters about South Korea blaming North Korea for an attack on a South Korean ship.

The e-mail address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Posted on May 21 by Gail Sullivan at 6:53 p.m.