Hello and welcome to this late political Gab Fest for the third of September. I'm John Dickerson here with David Plotz. Emily Bazelon is in New Haven, where she is linked up on a secure line, giving us maximum audio.

Today we are going to talk about the president's speech on Iraq and his meeting with

Middle Eastern leaders in Washington.

Then we're going to talk about the Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin and just the whole

Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Phenomenon.

Yeah.

Oh, no, we lost every possible listener when I announced that.

And now the third, we're going to talk about the DC mayor's race, which is fascinating

in a particular interest to us since we live here and are defined by the things that happened

mostly in proximity to us, and then we'll have our cocktail chatter as normal.

But before we start in on our first topic, Emily, you have an

announcement. We are really excited to be coming back for a live performance in New York City

on Wednesday, October 13th at the 92nd Street Y in Tribeca. In other words, it's the 92nd Street

Y that's not actually on 92nd Street. It's downtown. They have an announcement up. Which makes you ask why.

It's an illustrious tradition. They have an announcement up at their website, which is 92.org, and we will put up the link on our pages again. And we're really excited to be coming back. It'll be right before the election pretty much,

so there'll be tons to talk about. We had a great time the last time we were live in New York,

and we hope lots of you come. And we're also going to do drinks at a bar beforehand,

which a number of you have already expressed interest in. But if there are other people out there

who want to come, we may still have a few more

spots so let us know.

And that's email us at gabfest.com.

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