Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday, September 12th.

I'm John Dickerson here in person with David Plotz, who is also here, coughing occasionally

in person and Emily Bazelon from our far-flung Northeastern Mountain Top Bureau bureau. We're all together in this late conference room. And we're delighted to talk about three things this week. It's so nice not to be hosting. I'm so glad to hear you hosting. And I'm happy not to be an hotel. I'm so glad you're not a hotel. I'm so glad Emily's here. It's so nice having Emily back. I know. David is just so joyous and friendly today. Well, it's the warm glow of fatherhood that's... I think it's because he has bronchitis and he's just glad that he's talking without coughing. That's true, but let's not jinx that. We're going to talk about Sarah Palin, then the state of the political race as it stands, and then we're going to talk about Barack Obama.

Emily, I know you love Sarah Palin.

What do you think about her a week after her pick?

I am continuing to be mesmerized by her, and yet fighting that feeling because I think that Sarah Palin is taking over the campaign and the election, and it seems ridiculous.

She is not running for president.

She, this is not, we're in a complete hyper cult of personality moment, and I want us to get out of it.

And yet, I think we're all feeding into it, sort of in spite of ourselves.

I mean, one of the slate contributors, Dana Stevens, our movie critics, sent an email

yesterday in which he said, on the one hand, this is the richest vein about gender and

feminism and politics that there's been to mine.

And on the other hand, all the mining of it is only kind of twisting our perception

of what's actually at stake in the election. What does she mean by twisting our perception of what's actually at stake in the election.

What does she mean by twisting our perception of what's at stake in the election?

You know, should we elect John McCain?

And so should we elect Republicans based on whether Sarah Palin has taken good care of her children

or, you know, should have a 17-year-old daughter who's pregnant, whether her son actually mainline drugs, as the National Enquirer accused him of, doesn't really seem like what the country state should be hindering on.

David, you are physically incapable of carrying on a conversation about Serbian.

I know.

I know. I should explain to our listeners.

If I had my druthers, I would be sitting with my fingers in my ear saying,

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