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The Survivalist GabfestListen to Slate's weekly political show.

By Emily Bazelon, Andy Bowers, John Dickerson, and David Plotz
Updated Thursday, March 15, 2007, at 6:27 PM ET

To listen to the March 9 Gabfest, click the arrow on the player below: .

You can also click here to download the MP3 file, or you can subscribe to the weekly Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here.

March 15, 2007

Dear Gabfest listeners: The Friday, March 16 program is going to be posted a little later than usual (because of John's travels with Sen. John McCain, which he'll be telling us about). Look for the program on Friday afternoon. Posted by Andy Bowers, 6:28 p.m.

March 9, 2007

On this week's Gabfest: The fired U.S. attorneys speak out, Scooter Libby hopes for a pardon, and Hillary and Barack try some identity politics. Plus, in our cocktail chatter segment, David Plotz wonders why he's suddenly gone into survival mode.

And here are links to some of the articles mentioned in the show:

Emily Bazelon on the crazy drama at the U.S. attorney hearings.

Dahlia Lithwick on the mysterious provision that allowed the purge and which senator Arlen Specter seems to know nothing about.

John Dickerson on the Libby verdict.

The survivalist checklist that is guiding David Plotz on his latest obsession. Posted by Andy Bowers, 7:18 a.m.

To listen to the March 2 Gabfest, click the arrow on the player below:

Monday, March 5, 2007

No Joke: In last Friday's Gabfest, I made an analogy between Dick Cheney's news-free briefing and the old joke about English food. There was a problem: The joke wasn't about English food. I conflated my Anglophilia with my fondness for Woody Allen films. The joke I was telling was from the opening of Annie Hall about food in the Catskills, not English food. (The video can be found here.) Here's the text: "Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, 'Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.' The other one says, 'Yeah, I know, and such small portions.' "

Thanks to Irving Kagen for helping me get to yes on this question. Another Gabfest listener wrote in to say that the joke I was searching for was that English food is bad and portions are so large. I've heard the former, of course (so has Jacques Chirac), but I'm still skeptical about the latter. (This may be a result of my continual disappointment with the ploughman's lunch.) In any event, the Woody Allen joke is more amusing, and it still applies to Dick Cheney's briefing.

Thanks to all who wrote in on this important question. Posted by John Dickerson, 11:15 a.m. (link)

Friday, March 2, 2007

Welcome to our new Gabfest page, where we'll be posting links and other items mentioned in each week's show. There's also a new Gabfest Fray thread, where you can discuss the program with other listeners.

On this week's episode, regular panelists Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz tackle these topics: Should we talk to Iran? Is any GOP candidate conservative enough for the base? And should Al Gore turn Oscar gold into another White House run?

And for those who wanted to read Bill McKibben's article about happiness in Mother Jones, which David Plotz mentioned last week, you'll find it here. Posted by Andy Bowers, 12:08 a.m. (link)

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor. Andy Bowers is the editor of Slate V. John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at . David Plotz is Slate's deputy editor. He is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. You can e-mail him at .
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