It's a sloganless gab fest. This is the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday, February 1st, 2008. I'm Dale Willman. John is finally back in Washington and in good health. On the agenda this week, it's bye-bye, John, the Democrats

debate, and Emily takes on electronic surveillance. And now, to introduce the discussion,

here's John. Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. I'm John Dickerson with Emily

Bazelon and David Plotz. We are all back together, and I've rested control of the show back into my own hands. We're going to start with the Democratic. We don't have a slogan for those of you who may have tuned in looking for a slogan. We have lots and lots of ideas, but no consensus about anything. We can't even agree on the slogan. Yeah. So for those of you who are waiting, you're going to have to, I'm sad to say, wait a little bit longer. David, you watch the debate. Emily, you watch the debate as well. Your reaction, David. We're talking about the Democratic debate, I should say. Right, the Democratic debate. It was pretty boring. And I just, I didn't, I wasn't gripped by it. Mostly I was gripped by the kind of Academy Award aspect of it, where they kept showing the cutaways of sort of second-rate Hollywood celebrities. And some first-rate ones, too. Really? I maybe I missed the cutaways. I missed the first-rate ones, yeah. We're not one. What first-rate? Rob Reiner was in the audience. That is total second-rate. I feel like he's kind of a saggy sack. Seinfeld actors?

You guys have really? Jason Alexander, yeah. You have high standards. Yeah, that's second rate. That's not, that's like TV glamour. It's not cinematic glamour. You didn't see Mel Gibson and Bradford. To be fair, Brittany couldn't be there because she had 12 police cars and a helicopter

taking her to a psychiatric ward.

Otherwise, I'm sure she would have been.

No, but, okay, in all seriousness, because really, it's a gray gloomy day here in

Washington, I don't know.

It was really, really not interesting.

I mean, it was, I thought Hillary substantively was much stronger than he was. He was fine.

And it was, it wasn't, it wasn't interesting. So I didn't really pay much attention.

Emily, your reaction. I thought he missed a few moments where he could have been just more jovial and smiley.

And she was sort of trying. they had a couple moments where they

were almost doing little schick like that question about the obama clinton clinton obama ticket

went off pretty well but there were a few other ones more that laugh she did laugh and that was

horrifying that was horrifying did you guys catch that i just i actually had my back turn

you like shivered with your back turn.

I shivered at that moment when I heard the laugh. It, it, it does have to be accounted for. Yeah, it can't, I mean, it, it is striking that laugh. I'm not sure. Anyway. Right, go ahead. anyway so i was a little disappointed by that but i did really like the moment at the end where

obama pulled out Hillary's chair for her.

It was as if he was trying to make up for his not shaking her hand earlier this week and all these accusations of non-chivalrous behavior in one smooth gesture.

For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the petty little snub, no snub story at the Save the Union earlier in the week, Hillary Clinton came over to say hello to Teddy Kennedy, who had that day endorsed Obama.

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