The Gab Fest takes on New Hampshire.

This is the Slate Political Gab Fest.

For Friday, January 11th, 2000 date.

I'm Dale Wilman.

John is back in Washington, where he joins David and Emily.

On the agenda this week, it's the Hillary comeback tour. Will Fred Thompson make a better attorney general and Harry Potter sues? And now, to introduce the discussion, here's John. Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. I'm John Dickerson here back in the little room in Washington with Emily Bazelon and David Plotz. It feels good to be back together after such a long absence. We're glad to see you. It's been since the 80s, I think. And we're going to talk about the exciting New Hampshire results. Emily, were you surprised that Hillary Clinton won and were you the only person in America who thought she was going to win? I've had, I knew. See, if we were on video today, we would have had Emily's gestural laugh, gestural but not vocalized laugh that people would have seen. That's true. And everyone really needed to see that. So we're not on video. Because we were on video last week. We're not on video this week. Yes, I was completely surprised. I was shocked. Were you appalled? Was anyone? No, I wasn't appalled. I actually

think that it's much better for the race to have it be a real race. I don't think Obama is ready.

I don't think either of them have shown that they're really ready to be the candidate. And if they

really slug it out as long as they stay above board. And I'm sort of nervous about that in terms of

the Clinton camp. But as long as that happens, I think it's really good for us to have a longer

real race. What do you want to learn? What do I want to learn? That's such a good question.

I don't think it's a matter of policy stances so much since they basically agree with each other.

From Obama's point of view, I want to see a little

more meat on his message. Is that a, it seems like a terrible metaphor? Thank goodness we're not

on the video gab festival. I want to see him flesh out his sort of ethereal rhetoric. And from

Hillary's point of view, it's more complicated because while I, like, a lot of people,

particularly a lot of women, was sort of drawn to her warming up and softening, I'm not really sure.

I think she can sustain that because at some point it's going to itself start to seem really calculated.

Wait, which part of the warming?

You, that, that dimes. It really? No, I did not go for the diner job. What they're talking about is the moment when Hillary Clinton kind of broke up. She didn't get to a full weep, but she got to the precipice of a complete nervous breakdown. She welled up. She welled up. It wasn't the welling up for me so much as the Saturday debate.

There were a few moments.

I mean, I just generally came away, and I wrote about this this week, and I said this to you also,

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