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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for April 26, 2013.

The Vatim bag will be 1450 with tax edition.

I'm David Plotz, the ender of Slate, here in our DC studio with John Dickerson, the great Oak in the Forest of Slate, our chief political correspondent. Hello, John. Hello, David. And from New York today, not from New Haven,

from New York, is our senior editor, Emily Bazelon, Sticks and Stones author. Hello, Emily.

Hey, David. Wait, I thought you weren't going to New York.

She's in New York.

I am in New York.

I know, but there was a lot of, I'm going to New York, I'm not going to New York, I'm going to New York, I'm going to New York.

Do you know what?

Yes, and if I start talking about it, it will involve a lot of guilt about how I'm not on my son's field trip to the people at the museum today.

Oh, right, exactly.

I had a whole crisis about that, but it was not possible to go, and he forgave me.

Your attempt to encase him in a satin padded. Oh, right, exactly. I had a whole crisis about that, but it was not possible to go, and he forgave me.

Your attempt to, in case him in a satin-padded world has failed, he's now going to have to go out into the wiles without you at his side.

You know what I have to say? He said to me yesterday, Mommy, you say you always go on one field trip every year and you haven't gone on a field trip this year.

And my heart completely sank.

...