The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to this late political gap fest for Friday, November 14th, 2008.

I'm John Dickerson here with David Plotz, and we're joined in New York by Emily Bazelon,

who's there doing important business for Slate. Our three topics this week will be one, the Obama presidency, the great promise of it,

and any other last thoughts we have about the election.

Number two will be Sarah Palin, her coming presidency and ascendancy over all of mankind.

And three, then the bailout and the trouble in the auto industry will be devoting about 45 minutes to that

topic about which we know a great deal. The first topic, though, is the Obama presidency.

David Plotz, Barack Obama is now the most, has the highest approval rating of any

incoming president in the last quarter of century. He does? He does. It's only down from here.

How high is it? How high is it? 70. It's in the high 70s. It's only down from here. How high is it?

How high is it?

It's so funny. I talked to two friends of mine who both worked on the McCain campaign, and they had nothing but nice things to say about Obama. It was really weird. They were just saying, you know, I really, I think he can do a great job. and well this is what's curious about the election, Emily, is you had, you know, Obama won 52% of the popular vote. But now he is there, his approval ratings in the high 70s. Another poll has him in the high 60s. And in the high 60s, people think things will be better off in four years than they are now.

Now, that may reflect the fact that people think we're just in the gutter now and that even an android could improve our situation.

But there is this extraordinary sense of hope with Obama that seems to have grown since he was elected.

Maybe that's just people like being on the side of the winter.

What do you think accounts for this extraordinary support he has now that he didn't have on election day?

You know, I often feel like people want to have faith in their leaders.

And we've been so many of us unable to have any faith in our leader at this really important feeling moment for a long time. And so couldn't this be a slightly desperate clutching its straws, at least until we actually know how he's going to perform? Right. I don't think, but I think desperate clutching. First of all, can I just say that I'm really distracted because John is taking notes as though he's doing an interview with you, Emily? Why is he doing that? He's like, people want to have faith.

Is the note he just doing?

Is he taking notes on what he's saying?

He's either going to steal it and write a piece about it, or he thinks it's so important that he needs to stick it in his head so he can... I don't think we've said anything worth stealing. Okay, so I'm just going to go on here, which I don't think you characterize it in a sort of desperation way.

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