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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for April 19th, 2013, the What a Horrible, Horrible Week edition.

I am David Plotsey, Eddorf Slate.

Joining me, as always, here in Slate, D.C. studio is our chief political correspondent John Diggerson.

Hello. John?

Hello, David. And from New Haven,

Slate Senior Editor and Stixen Stones, authorist, Emily Vasselan, hello, Emily.

Hello. On this week's show, the bombings at the Boston Marathon, how will America respond?

Will this cause the kind of retrenchment and radical societal change that 9-11 did. Also, we'll discuss the media

response to the bombing, in particular the screw-ups by TV networks and some dubious tabloid journalism,

as well as the citizen detective work being carried out on the internet. Then the gun bill fails. Why

did that happen? Did it ever have a chance? Plus, we'll have

cocktail chatter, of course. Before we start, we told you last week that we're having our first

Boston area live at Gab Fest on Thursday, May 9th at First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

After the events of this week, we are especially glad to be coming to Boston for the show, looking forward to talking to you about sort of the longer term aftermath of the bombings and what that's meant.

We are putting the show on in partnership with Harvard Bookstore and WBUR, the radio station in public radio station in Boston, which has been doing amazing coverage of the bombings and it's thereafter math.

So First Parish is a great venue.

...