The GabFest is sponsored by Audible, the Internet's leading provider of spoken audio entertainment.

GabFest listeners can download a free audiobook by signing up for an Audible membership at Audiblepodcast.com slash gabfest. Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday. February 6th, I'm John Dickerson, here with David Plotz and Emily Bazelon in the original room. It's like a homecoming. And today we're going to... It's not even the original room because we used to do it in the old crummy office. We've been here long enough, though.

We're actually quietly squatting in our old crummy office.

We're opening the accountants who took over that space.

Don't recognize we're here.

The three topics today will be one, the state of the Obama administration after its worst day ever in its long history.

And the president's stimulus package, the second topic will be Tom Dashel, the former

Secretary of HHS or Secretary of HHS designated is gone, what happened.

And then the third topic will be Bill Crystal gone at the New York Times, right?

Isn't that our third topic?

Yes.

Okay.

So the first question is Tom Dashel had to leave. The stimulus package is having a tiny bumpy ride. Is it doom and is it all downhill from here, Emily, for Barack Obama?

Well, I don't know about doom and all downhill, but it certainly was a rapid return to the ordinary and the reality of what it actually is like to run a

government or run this government of ours. You know, in retrospect, it seems like they should have

realized as soon as they found out about dashels, not just his tax problems, but the idea that

his tax problems stand from being chauffured around in a car, which he was getting by influence peddling, based on his previous service in Washington as a senator, it seems like they should have realized in the beginning of January that he wasn't going to be a good appointee and gotten rid of it.

But one imagines that in that moment where it seemed like Obama could do anything, and here's this nominee who's particularly close to the president, that they were going to sweep it through.

And now it's clear that they're not.

And I actually think it's much better for, you know, their future as an administration and just, like, policy terms that they've been brought down to earth quickly.

So we're going to do Dashel first.

It's all part of the same thing.

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