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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political GabFest for October 19th, 2012, The Binders and Binders and Binders edition.

I am David Plotz, the editor of Slate, here in Slate's D.C. headquarters with John Dickerson,

Slate's chief political correspondent, political director of CBS News, who is laughing about something.

Hello, John.

Well, hi. I thought you'd forgotten who I was for a second.

No, I was consulting my notes to figure that out.

Down the wire from us, we have Emily Bazelon, Slate Senior Editor in New Haven.

Hello, Emily.

Hello, hello.

So it is an all-presidential campaign at GabFest this week, as it should be.

Our first topic will be, of course, the second presidential debate and whether President

Obama's aggressive performance reversed his slide in the polls.

Then we will drill down into that debate.

Our second topic will be the politics of Libya and whether the issue of the Benghazi tragedy

is a winning one for Mitt Romney and for Republicans.

And third, who needs binders when you have Emily Bazelon,

...