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Hello and welcome to the slave political gab fest for Friday, September 11th, 2009.

It's still hard to say that date without remembering September 11th of eight years ago.

But that's not our first topic.

The first topic is, or today our three topics are going to be health care, the Citizens United case in the Supreme Court, and then Dan Brown's new novel, which is set in Washington. Before we begin our discussion, we should probably have some kind of a, what is this, a public service announcement or some kind of a warning. Emily Bazelon is in the middle of an experiment related to another Slate project in which she has to drink all day like they do on Mad Men.

So she's pie-eyed at the moment.

And if you hear clinking in the glass, that's the ice in my whiskey.

The rocks.

What did I tell you?

So we're going to begin, and we should say we weren't a part of the drinking thing.

So, Will, David and I are drinking.

We're sober.

We're more sober than usual.

That's right.

We've been in prayer and meditation all day long.

It's all part of the role reversals from madmen, women drinking, men looking on, jealously.

I'm sure it'll all work out fine in the end.

So the first topic is health care.

The president gave his big speech on Wednesday night in front of joint session of Congress,

and it was met with relatively rave reviews from the commentariat.

The question is whether it will actually do anything to quicken the pace of health care reform or the scope of the health care reform.

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