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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for the week of August 3rd, 2012, the Chick-fil-A edition.

I'm David Plotz, the editor of Slate, here for one last show before two weeks of vacationing in foreign climes.

Like Mitt Romney, I'm going to Europe to tell the Europeans how much better America is.

Across the table for me is not John Dickerson, who is away in a manger somewhere, but is rather Will Dombson Slate's political editor.

Now a GabFest veteran.

You've been on before, so you know how it goes.

Well, welcome back.

Good to have you.

And joining us by phone from some vacation land in New England that is surely more beautiful and more comfortable than Washington, D.C.

Slate Senior Editor, Emily, Bazelon.

Emily, are you in a canoe or a hammock?

A canoe or a hammock? Well, I had to... Are you wrestling a lobster? Yeah, so I can eat it for dinner, except that I don't usually eat shellfish. But sometimes I make an exception when I'm in Maine. When you kill it yourself and boil it, You pleasure in boiling another creature alive.

Exactly. Why not? We have three topics today. We will talk about Mitt Romney's foreign tour,

as well as his taxes. We're going to talk about Ted Cruz, the Texas Tea Party Wunderkind.

That's like the third time in three shows I've used that phrase, Wunderkind, each time. Maybe that says something about our topic selection. We're obsessed with rising stars. We need to talk about some declining folks. Also, Ted Cruz is a Wunderkin because he is younger than I am by about six months. Therefore, he is. Yeah, he qualifies. He qualifies. And third, we'll talk about the Chick-fil-A scandal.

Should you boycott it? Should Chick-fil-A be banned from right-thinking municipalities everywhere? But before we do that, I want to announce two events in a kind of self-serving way. You know Hanna Rosen, right? Emily? I do. I know and love your dear wife, Hanna-Rosven. Yes. So Atlantic Senior Editor, Double X founder, Double X Gab Fester, and, of course, Mrs. Rosenplots.

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