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Hello and welcome to this Slate Political Gab Fest.

The Washington is just awful, but you, dear listener, our wonderful edition.

I'm David Plotz, the editor of Slate.

Joining me today are Sharp with the Samurai Sword, Emily Bazelon, Slate's senior editor to my right,

and John Dickerson, as dangerous as an angry rattlesnake, Slate's chief political correspondent and political director of CBS News to my left. We are live in front of a gorgeous crowd at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue

for a live version of the Gab Fest. John, please tell me, are these beautiful people I see real,

or are they figments of my imagination? They are real to me, but our listeners don't know that you're real.

And I don't know that you're real.

And I don't know if our listeners could tell, but that's two balconies of people.

It's not clear, but there are a lot of people.

This is the biggest crowd.

This is our biggest crowd here.

This is great.

We're so glad you guys are here.

It's our pretend rock star moment, right?

...