The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest that will remember me

a hundred years from now edition. This is also the Slate Daily podcast for Wednesday,

December 2nd, 2009. On today's program, White House Gate Crashers, Time Magazine's worst decade ever,

and Eva Tangway, the world's first rock star. Joining me today are Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner.

Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And of course, Dana Stevens, our film critic. Hey, Dana. And also,

Troy Patterson, Slate's TV critic, Troy, welcome back. Thanks for inviting me.

Stress on inviting. Yeah. Stress away. Let's dive right in. Two people uninvited to a White

House date dinner for the Prime Minister of India, showed up at the door,

somehow got in, they were dressed appropriately, acted appropriately, met the president,

photographed with him and Michelle Obama, revealed very soon after that they were party

crashers. They didn't belong there, didn't have a proper invitation now. There's some ambiguity

about that. They claim they were properly invited,

but the catnip behind the story is that they slipped in uninvited. I look at this, Troy, and I see

Nini Steele's limelight, once again, insert proper name, and yet the story is taking on some

momentum, and you wrote a very funny browbeat entry on Slate's culture blog about this and the

phenomenon in general of party crashing.

So walk me through it.

It's more fun than just a ninny steals, the limelight story.

It's really about going to places that you're not supposed to be and eating the

shrimp at the shrimp float.

Yeah. As far as I'm concerned, the real crime of the White House party crashers was their

...