CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl. Thank you so much.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you. We've got a great show for you today. We've got movie director Barry Sonnenfeld. He'll be here to talk about "Men in Black" and all kinds of other cools things he's done. But first, every week we get emails from people saying they hate our canned laughter, they think we're using a laugh track.
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SAGAL: They don't seem to realize that we have a live audience here. And I mean, trying to make these guys laugh at a joke they don't like would be like herding cats with tote bags. Am I right?
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SAGAL: Anyway, we have a great show for you today. So give us a call, the number if 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!.
KEVIN CARRUTH: Hello.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
CARRUTH: This is Kevin Carruth in Rockport, Texas.
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SAGAL: They like you here, Kevin.
CARRUTH: Better than the alternative.
SAGAL: I guess so. What town are you from in Texas?
CARRUTH: Rockport.
SAGAL: Now where is Rockport?
CARRUTH: We are about the middle of the coast, right there where it takes a bend. We're about 25 miles north of Corpus Christie.
SAGAL: Oh, I see. And what do you do there?
CARRUTH: I am the city manager.
SAGAL: Oh wow, so you're in charge of Rockport.
AMY DICKINSON: Whoa.
CARRUTH: On my delusional days, I think that.
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SAGAL: And what's it's like being the most powerful man in Rockport.
CARRUTH: I don't know, ask my wife.
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SAGAL: Well done, sir, well done. Well, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a comedienne who'll be performing at the Lakewood Theater in Dallas on June 2nd, it's Paula Poundstone, is here.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hey Kevin.
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SAGAL: Next, it's a humorist and author of the audio book, "It's Just Like I Told You: 25 Years of Comments and Comic Pieces," available at a download near you. It's Tom Bodett is right here.
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TOM BODETT: Hi, Kevin.
CARRUTH: Hi, Tom.
SAGAL: Finally, it's the woman who writes the syndicated Ask Amy column for the Chicago Tribute, and hosts the all-advice website askamydaily.com, it's Amy Dickinson is here.
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DICKINSON: Hey.
CARRUTH: Hi, Amy.
SAGAL: So Kevin, welcome to the show. Now you're going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell is going to read you three quotes from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them you'll win our prize, Carl's voice on your home answering machine. You ready to go?
CARRUTH: You bet.
SAGAL: All right, here is your first quote.
KASELL: I, too, want to slow jam the news.
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SAGAL: That was somebody appearing on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" this week, who picked up the mike and got smooth this week.
CARRUTH: Barack Obama.
SAGAL: Yes, President Obama, very good.
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SAGAL: Yes. Remember, maybe, if you can, when young people and college kids packed auditoriums and stadiums to cheer Candidate Obama in 2008? Well that was before they all got distracted by Pinterest or whatever it is. So the President is starting the general election season by trying to excite the kids again. He did a comedy bit with Jimmy Fallon.
He's been on a barnstorming tour of campuses. He's talking about issues important to young people: student loans, how freaky that Tupac hologram was, and creating a national program to help low income students get faked IDs.
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SAGAL: The President has also been popping up in youth hangouts in college towns to hang with the youth of today. At the University of Colorado, for example, one young woman was so excited she spilled her yogurt on him. That led her to being questioned by the Secret Service. The question being, "So, what are your rates?"
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SAGAL: It's a reflex, they're trained. What can I tell you?
BODETT: But you know what, if that would have been corndog mustard, it would have got him an extra 500,000 votes. It's like, of course it's yogurt.
SAGAL: Yeah.
DICKINSON: It's yogurt.
BODETT: You know, yeah.
DICKINSON: Right.
SAGAL: It's one of those liberal foods.
BODETT: It is, yeah.
SAGAL: Why not smear him with quinoa while you're at it? I mean, seriously.
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SAGAL: What do you think of the argument that he's getting too informal, that this is beneath the dignity of his office? Have you heard that?
POUNDSTONE: I thought the twister thing was not good.
DICKINSON: A bit much?
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SAGAL: When he played twister at the frat house?
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. I've said it before, but I hate seeing the president on talk shows.
SAGAL: Really, why?
POUNDSTONE: It just bothers me. I just think it cheapens the office. And I think him selling the Swiffer was the wrong move.
DICKINSON: Right.
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SAGAL: Well, we've got to pay the bills.
DICKINSON: But is there an element - because you're somebody, like, you know, you're like a professional. Is there an element of that where you feel like, hey, bud, leave it to the pros?
POUNDSTONE: Oh yeah, he's on my territory.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: It's like look, I don't order drone strikes; you don't go on "Late Night."
POUNDSTONE: Well, I have ordered drone strikes.
SAGAL: Right, well...
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SAGAL: But it was a hypothetical, maybe poorly chosen.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, well, you know, I'm not saying they were carried, but certainly I've picked up the phone and ordered them.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, don't cross me.
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POUNDSTONE: Yeah, it wasn't on another country or anything, it was the American Apparel sales clerk.
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SAGAL: I'm sorry; we don't have that in your size. Death from above, lady.
POUNDSTONE: I wish that's what the young man had said.
SAGAL: What did he say, Paula?
POUNDSTONE: This is what he said. He said, "A lot of older women come in here looking for larger sizes."
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SAGAL: Oh, a predator drone would be too good for him, Paula.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, yeah, so I picked up the phone.
BODETT: So how long have you worked in sales, young man?
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POUNDSTONE: Yeah, a lot of older women come in here and ask for the bigger sizes. I swear that guy said that to me. Yeah. I've forgotten. I've walked it off.
DICKINSON: Yeah, really.
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SAGAL: All right, Kevin, here's your next quote.
KASELL: I have to listen to their message and take them into account and not think it is time to hold my nose.
SAGAL: So who's listening to the message and not holding his nose when it comes to the voters telling him they might not want him to be president of France anymore?
CARRUTH: Oh, good grief. Nicholas Sarkozy.
SAGAL: Yes, Nicholas Sarkozy, very good.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, right.
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DICKINSON: There you go.
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SAGAL: President Sarkozy of France ran for reelection and came up, well, a little short.
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SAGAL: He came in second in the first round of voting. That's the first time that's ever happened to a sitting French president. Although technically, he is not a sitting president, he's been standing the whole time.
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SAGAL: He got beat by a socialist candidate who's now the front-runner for the presidency. It is so different in France. There hasn't been a prominent socialist in American politics since once became president four years ago.
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SAGAL: But since then, really.
DICKINSON: Now, didn't they say like that he was, like, too mean or something?
SAGAL: Yeah, apparently.
DICKINSON: Yeah.
SAGAL: They don't like him. He's not a very popular man.
POUNDSTONE: How is he mean?
SAGAL: Well, he's rude, which again, this is France.
DICKINSON: Yeah, in France, I know.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, honestly.
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BODETT: And you know the name of his party? I didn't know this. It's Union for a Popular Movement. I mean, how can you go wrong with that?
SAGAL: That is catchy.
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BODETT: I mean everybody likes a popular movement, right?
POUNDSTONE: Cottonelle is using that aren't they?
DICKINSON: Cottonelle.
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SAGAL: One of the problems that Sarkozy might have had was that just a few weeks ago, very poorly timed, it was right before the election, he banned the after dinner cheese course at the presidential palace. This is true.
POUNDSTONE: No.
SAGAL: He loves cheese, Sarkozy, but every time he tried to grab some, the trap would snap shut on his neck.
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SAGAL: I mean you have to say this about French diversity; it's wonderful that a borrower became president of France.
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POUNDSTONE: Peter, you're not real, real tall, are you?
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SAGAL: This is radio, Paula. Yes, I am.
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SAGAL: Kevin, here is your last quote.
KASELL: I'm going to be the nominee. The odds are very high; I'm going to be the nominee.
SAGAL: That was somebody speaking last December to ABC News. This week, he realized at long last that no, he was not going to be the nominee. Who is it?
CARRUTH: Was that Newt.
SAGAL: Newt, Newt Gingrich.
POUNDSTONE: All right.
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SAGAL: Exactly right. I realize Newt campaigned as if all the factors against him: money, organization, the fact that he is Newt Gingrich, didn't matter. And he staked his whole campaign; just his last desperate chance was upsetting Mitt Romney in Delaware. At least Newt's finally realized his greatest strength: upsetting people.
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SAGAL: But he lost in Delaware, like he did everywhere else, this week. And on Wednesday, he went to the bedside of his dying campaign and told it he was leaving.
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DICKINSON: Boy, you cheat on your wife and look what happens.
SAGAL: Yeah.
DICKINSON: It's like, wow.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, boy, Peter Sagal gets a hold of it, it's like a rag doll in a dog's mouth.
DICKINSON: Yeah, really.
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POUNDSTONE: Peter really turns it on his ear and makes it look bad, doesn't he?
DICKINSON: He does. He does.
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Kevin do on our quiz?
KASELL: Kevin, you had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done, Kevin, congratulations.
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SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing.
CARRUTH: Appreciate it.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
CARRUTH: Take care.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.