The Conventional Wisdom Gabfest
Listen to Slate's show about Romney’s speech at the Republican Convention, feuding over facts, and a DNC preview.
Posted Friday, Aug. 31, 2012, at 5:18 PM ET
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On this week’s Slate Political Gabfest, John Dickerson, David Plotz, and Emily Bazelon discuss the Romney/Ryan pitch at the RNC, the Romney campaign vs. the fact-checkers, and a preview of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
Here are some of the links and references mentioned during this week's show:
- Full texts of the speeches: Romney, Ryan, and Eastwood.
- John mentions the latest CBS poll on voter opinions about Romney.
- John’s reaction to Romney’s night: a good, workmanlike speech.
- Emily’s view is that the campaign should go with Romney as Superman; she also raises this idea in her reaction to Ann Romney’s speech.
- Dave Weigel compares Clint Eastwood’s speech to a bad wedding toast.
- Ron Fournier says Romney is playing the race card. John and Ron were involved in a heated exchange at a National Journal forum; watch that here.
- In the discussion about fact-checking and the media, Emily mentions a change NPR made to its ethics policy.
- The Atlantic’s James Bennet has more on the discussion about welfare and fact-checking.
David chatters about this letter from the wife of Revolutionary War Gen. Henry Knox.
Emily chatters about Susan Shreve’s new book, You Are the Love of My Life.
John chatters about a website where Robert Caro talks about his process of writing.
Topic ideas for next week? You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest.
The e-mail address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Mike Vuolo. Links compiled by Jeff Friedrich.
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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids. Her forthcoming book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Empathy and Character, will be published in February. Find her at emilybazelon@gmail.com or on Facebook or Twitter.
John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at slatepolitics@gmail.com. Read his series on the presidency and his series on risk. Follow him on Twitter.
David Plotz is the Editor of Slate. He's the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank and Good Book. He appears on Slate's Political Gabfest.