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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday, the 29th of April 2011.

It's a big day. It's a big day because John Dickerson, Slate's political editor, is back to my right here in Washington, back from places far and near.

And from New Haven joining us, also back from places far near.

Emily Bazelon, Slate's legal editor. No, you're not. You're a senior editor. Maybe you're a legal editor. I don't know what you are. She's also our chief archer. Chief Archer. I'm David Plotz, the editor of Slate. And it's also a big day because actually, you know what? Tomorrow's my grandmother's 99th birthday. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

That's amazing.

And you left out the royal wedding.

And it's 99th birthday. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

That's amazing. And you left out the royal wedding. And it's a royal wedding. I feel obligated to

mention even as a royal wedding. I watched. Did you guys watch? No, not only did I not watch. I was at

dinner the other night with some very nice Brits and completely insulted them accidentally by A, yet again, mixing up Princess

Harry and William, and that was a little bit like on purpose. But B, I called Kate Middleton

cute, which I just meant as a nice thing, and they were horrified. That was not the right

word to use for her at all. Because what would be a better word? Elegant and beautiful, they

suggested, but cute was not their idea of what she looks like. She's cute. I felt badly. I find it very attractive. You find it very attractive. I do. That's the divide. That's the Dickerson Plus divide. I think she's, do you actually, you're like. Not if she were like a meter mate or make. If you were 20 and you were 19. No, no, no. I just mean relative to the princess cartoon.

You know, like of the princess, you know, in the princess model, I think she's worked perfectly.

As opposed to another kind of beauty that you could see for that kind of stylized role. Do you guys think that we would, that having a monarchy would be nice to have in this country? It would be fun. Yes, I think there's something to be said for separating the roles out, having some kind of ceremonial leadership that then you don't have to act as if that's invested in the White House. Right. A colleague of ours, Annie Lowry was writing a piece yesterday about the economic value of the royal family.

And one thing she talked about, though, I think she didn't end up including it in the

piece was actually that one thing it does is that it allows the queen and the princes to take

on all these responsibilities that here, you know, the vice president or the president or the first lady has to do. And so your, your actual government has time to govern and they don't have to do all this ceremonial hoo-ha, then they can focus more on the government. And they, and, uh, so David Cameron gets to actually govern Britain and not do so much ceremonial stuff because the queen is there to ceremonialize. How much did you watch of it? I watched, uh, 45 minutes. So you got up at 4 a.m.? No, you didn't have to. I was getting up. I was just doing some yoga in the house. So it was like, nice, it seems a little ishtanga, a little downward-to-downward facing monarchy. A little yoga with the queen.

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