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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gadfest for Friday, August 7th.

I'm John Dickerson in Washington with David Plotz.

And joining us from New York is not Emily Bazelon, but Dan Gross.

Thank you, Dan, for joining us.

Dan is Slate's money box columnist and Newsweek's business columnist. And editor, right? I don't know. I have a new title, actually. I'm economics editor. Oh. Do you edit anything? He adds economics. Economics would be far more complicated if he were not editing it. That's like there were people who I remember when I was at the city paper, there were senior, and they were senior to nobody and edited nothing. So I always thought that was a great title to have. We're going to start. I think maybe we're going to start with the economy because Dan is here, and we need to know what's going on. And then we're going to talk about health care. And then we're going to talk about Bill Clinton's extraordinary trip to North Korea

to rescue to American journalists, rescue, bring back. Reesco is a rescue. But rescue sounds like

he threw a grappling hook over a wall and went in, which I don't think he did. So let's start

with the economy. Dan, tell us, if we're at the dinner table and somebody says, the economy's screwed, are they right?

Are they wrong?

Are things getting better?

I think they're wrong.

I think the narrative surrounding the economy, especially the way it plays out in politics, has shifted literally within the last month or so.

Now, we may have had something to do with that.

Newsweek did a cover story that said the recession is over.

It had an asterisk and said, good luck surviving the economy.

And President Obama actually cited it in one of his town hall meetings as sort of a straw man.

In other words, hey, they say it's over, but we still have a lot of work to do,

and that's why we have to pass my agenda, stick with the stimulus. How much log rolling are you

going to do for Newsweek on this GabFest, Dan? I'm just wondering. That's all I got.

You sure? Yeah. Okay. Go on. Have you read Howard Feynman this week now? Are you kidding me?

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