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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for August 31st, 2012, the conventional

wisdom edition. I'm David Plotzy, Eddur of Slate, my life, a dull, adventurous journey

from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life in a country where everything

is free but me. I'm joined by John Dickerson,

Slate's chief political correspondent and political director of CBS News, who is still in Tampa,

Florida for the moment, attempting to recover from eye damage caused by staring directly into the

blazing white teeth of a Romney son. Hello, John. Hello, David. And back from vacation on four different continents, one of which hasn't even been discovered yet is Slate Senior Editor Emily Bazelon. Emily, it's so nice to have you back. Hello. Hey, I'm so glad to be back. Except that that trip sounded great that you just described. Oh, it wasn't really good. Why would anyone come back? That's a good point. Well, you had school to get back to and all that. All of us are back together. Honey and Buttercream. How lovely. Three topics on the Gab Fest this week. All of them, political. First, Mitt Romney's speech and the convention, did it make him seem human? Is it going to

change the story or rather the narrative of the race? I should say narrative. Is that the right

word, John? The technical term? Sure. It's an overused word, but that's fine. We like to overuse it.

Yeah, we can overuse it as much as we want. We overused it in the last election. We've been

trying hard not to use it in this one. topic paul ryan and the question of lying paul ryan made a

dazzling debut at the convention in tampa but did he tell the truth at least did he tell enough of

the truth doesn't matter are we in a post fact political world finally, the Democrats are preparing their counterattack.

What will they do in Charlotte next week to rebut the Republicans?

Plus cocktail chatter, of course.

So before the traditional balloon drop and the parade of cowboy hats and women in fire engine red suits,

...