Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday, November 21st. I'm John Dickerson

here with David Plotz in Washington. Emily is up north in our New Haven Bureau. And John's wearing a tie,

Emily. Can you believe it? Oh my gosh. Why? He looks deeply elegant. Yeah, except only a tie, which is a little uncomfortable for everyone here. That's okay. I'm going to out, John. He spent his whole day in his pajamas yesterday. It's true. Why do you know that? That's a little creepy. Because I talked to him in the afternoon and his kids were making fun of him, so he told me. I don't have pajamas. It's cold in our house. Otherwise, it's freezing.

But our first topic, of him, so he told me. I don't have pajamas. It's cold in our house.

Otherwise, it's freezing.

But our first topic is not the pajamas or the temperature in my house, but the Obama administration, as it shapes up this week.

The second topic will be a variety of political happenings, including Joe Lieberman retained his committee chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee,

and Henry Waxman is now a committee chairman of a very powerful committee in the House.

And the third topic will be the big three carmakers who flew their private jets to Washington to beg for money for bridge loans for their companies and the crisis in American automotive manufacturing, and then we'll go to our cocktail chatter.

So the first question is, Emily, before we move to Holder specifically, who's in your bailiwick, what are you getting from these discussions about Hillary Clinton, potentially at the Secretary of State for Obama.

Eric Holder at AG, Greg Craig, the White House lawyer. What's your feeling about this emerging Obama

administration? Well, two things. I mean, first is that if you want experience and you're a Democrat,

you go back to the last Democratic administration. and so we're seeing a lot of Clinton people

for better or worse. And second, I find myself kind of surprisingly a flutter about the idea of Hillary

Clinton as Secretary of State. How does that manifest itself? My heart is beating right through my

purple sweater. You'd be really impressed if you could see it. I know there are reasons why this could be hugely problematic, and I'm not sure that the bill

drama is going to be averted, allowing her to get the seat or to get the position, and then,

you know, he could derail it even after she got it, too, I suppose. But she does have such

incredible mastery of policy detail. She's got star power. She knows all these leaders. I think she

could be great at this job. David, do you review? Well, I'm a flutter, too. I'm fluttering.

You are? No, not really. A little bit. The last time he was a flutter was 1983. Yeah.

No, what has me actually slightly concerned, I have no beef with the general quality of the names we've heard so far.

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