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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for November 16th, 2012.

The All In Edition.

I'm David Plotz, the editor of Slate, and I'm alone in Slate's D.C. headquarters. That's because John Dickerson is off this week.

He is elsewhere in other places. But Emily Bazelon, Slate Senior Editor, Slate's Honorary Console to Yale University, is at her post to New Haven. Hello, Emily.

Hello.

And we have a special guest this week. Our third is occasional GabFest visitor and senior editor of The Atlantic, Tonanahasi Coates, welcome to Anahasi. Thanks for sitting in. Sup. Tanahasi's wearing a hat also. Somehow that goes with his greeting. Why does the hat go with a greeting? I don't know. It just seemed to to me. It's why I do the brosky thing. You're the first person who's going to try to like out baritone me on the show and it won't happen.

It's why to do the brosky thing. You're the first person who's going to try to like out baritone me on the show and it won't happen. It's not going to happen. I will not let it happen. I think you got it over me. I don't know. So I realize this doesn't reflect well on me and you guys can disagree, but I find myself totally enjoying this ludicrous pinwheeling scandal that's

happening on Petraeus. So I am looking forward to discussing every ludicrous detail

with you, every confirmation that Florida is indeed the weirdest state in the union.

So let's make that our first topic. Is that all right?

Sure. Isn't it just like real housewise for nerds? I mean,

isn't that what's kind of happening here? It's real housewise, not for nerds. It's real housewise for the Pentagon. Right. Okay. For the Pentagon. Real housewise. In fact, we're doing a video today at slate, Real Housewise for the Pentagon. So we'll talk about that as topic one. Our second topic will be President Obama back at work after re-election now

has a fights on two fronts with Republicans over the fiscal cliff and over Benghazi. We'll talk

about the return of partisan politics to Washington. And our third topic, Emily, will give us a

brilliant disquisition on the Voting Rights Act case that the Supreme Court has taken up and we'll talk about whether that law is going to survive. And of course, we will do cocktail chatter. But first, before we get to that, listen up. We are going to do something different next week for Thanksgiving. Do you want to explain Emily what we're going to do for the show next week? Yes. David and John and I are all going to manage to see the same movie. So we are all going to go see Lincoln. We know it's been out for a couple of weeks, but we figure this gives you guys a chance to go see it as well. And then we're going to talk about Lincoln as one of our topics. Right. How did I not get on that one? How did I not get on that? I feel like I'm a week

early or something. How did I not get on that one? Just show up in the studio next week. Exactly. You want to come to New Haven next week? You're welcome. No, I may come to D.C. I'll be down there, actually. I'll be in Baltimore for Thanksgiving. I may just drive over. It's just drop in.

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