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.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Great show for you today. We've got a great show for you today. We are especially excited by our guest this week. Jack Gantos, this week became the only Newberry Award-winning children's author to have served time in a federal prison for drug smuggling.
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SAGAL: This is true. Here's Carl reading an excerpt from Jack's winning book.
KASELL: "See Jack. Jack has a shiv."
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KASELL: "Jack says, 'Back off, I'll cut you. '"
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SAGAL: So, Jack Gantos joins us later.
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SAGAL: Right now, it's your turn. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-924-8924, that's 1-888-Wait-Wait. Hey, it's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
JON ALTMAN: Hi, Peter. This is Jon Altman from Pelahatchie, Mississippi.
SAGAL: Pelahatchie, Mississippi, I have not been there. Where is that?
ALTMAN: It is about 30 miles east of the state capitol, Jackson.
SAGAL: Okay, it can be beautiful country down there. What do you do?
ALTMAN: I'm a United Methodist pastor and a hospice chaplain.
SAGAL: Oh wow, so you're doing good work.
ALTMAN: Well, thank you.
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SAGAL: I bet you expected me to say something snaky didn't you?
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ALTMAN: I think I said Peter won't be able to mock that.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: No, I know when I'm beaten. Well, welcome to the show Jon. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, say hello to a Second City and "Colbert Report" alum, Mr. Peter Grosz is there.
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ALTMAN: Hey, Peter.
PETER GROSZ: Hi, Jon.
SAGAL: Next, one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source column, the very reliable Roxanne Roberts is here.
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ALTMAN: Hi, Roxanne.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hello, Jon.
SAGAL: And lastly, a comedian and a host at vocolo.org, it is Brian Babylon.
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ALTMAN: Hi, Brian.
BRIAN BABYLON: Hey, Jon, how are you?
SAGAL: Jon, welcome to our show. You're going to start us off, of course, with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell will recreate for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job: correctly explain or identify two of them. Do that: you'll win Carl's voice on your voicemail. You ready to go?
ALTMAN: Yes.
SAGAL: Here we go. Here is your first quote.
KASELL: With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.
SAGAL: Yeah, that's the second time this week that didn't get a laugh.
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SAGAL: That knee-slapper was the comedy highlight of what big speech this week?
ALTMAN: The State of the Union address.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
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SAGAL: With that joke - yes, he got it right. With that joke, President Obama finally proved he wasn't born to a Kenyan anti-colonialist in Nairobi. He was born to my Uncle Morty in Flatbush.
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SAGAL: Analysts agreed it was the lamest joke in a State of the Union ever, at least since Nixon went with "Eisenhower? I hardly knew her."
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ROBERTS: I liked it. I liked it because A, it was a dorky joke, and he thought it was funny, which is sort of brings out the - he's kind of a dork, I mean, come one.
GROSZ: Kind of?
BABYLON: Kind of?
GROSZ: He's the dork-in-chief.
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SAGAL: I actually read an analysis that said that his team carefully planned for him to tell a lame joke, so as to connect with America, who also tell lame jokes.
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GROSZ: Like, oh, he's one of us.
SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.
GROSZ: Yeah, got it.
BABYLON: Right. I bet Obama is going to ask McConnell to pull his finger.
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BABYLON: Then he'd be a lot like me.
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SAGAL: Now, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, he gave the Republican response. He said that in the GOP's view, this isn't a nation of have and have-nots, but, "a nation of haves and soon-to-haves." That's right, guy sleeping under a bridge, you're soon to have tuberculosis.
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SAGAL: Congratulations.
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BABYLON: That's the new spin?
SAGAL: That's what he said.
BABYLON: Okay, that makes me feel better about myself. I soon will be okay.
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SAGAL: You'll soon...
ROBERTS: No, you have an opportunity to be okay.
BABYLON: Opportunity.
ROBERTS: That doesn't mean you're going to be okay.
SAGAL: You're not broke, you're pre-rich.
GROSZ: There you go.
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BABYLON: There you go, pre-rich.
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GROSZ: Pre-rich.
BABYLON: The new spin.
SAGAL: All right, Jon, here is your next quote. It was someone talking about his multiple affairs and marriages and affairs.
KASELL: It may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition.
SAGAL: Who says his history of adultery makes him a better presidential candidate?
ALTMAN: Newt Gingrich.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
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SAGAL: By comparing himself to someone who "wanders around seeming perfect," Gingrich was obviously referring to Mitt Romney, who might have other qualifications, but, you know, since he didn't cheat on two different wives, what does he know about life?
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SAGAL: But even Gingrich in this defense did not go as far as Dr. Keith Ablow. He is a Fox News contributor. And he wrote that Newt's marital history actually proves he'd make a better candidate because he's such a great guy that at least three women decided "they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him."
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GROSZ: How'd that work out?
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: He's like three women, three women can't be wrong about the guy, even if two of them ended up being really wrong about the guy.
GROSZ: Plus, America only wants to spend four, maybe eight years with him, you know. We're going to get divorced from him anyway. You know, not really a lifetime with Gingrich.
BABYLON: That's the Newt cycle and he's good for about eight years.
GROSZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: Yeah, and then he's going to move on to another country.
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GROSZ: Trust me, I will find another country attractive.
SAGAL: The problem is, like, in year seven we're going to find out that since year four he's been sleeping with Mexico.
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SAGAL: And he's going to come and he's going to ask us for like an open presidency.
BABYLON: Yeah, I don't think it's going to be Mexico.
SAGAL: You don't think so?
BABYLON: Something tells me it's not going to be Mexico.
SAGAL: This was the week that the conservative establishment realized just how close Newt was to winning the nomination and they went to Defcon 5. They paid for PAC ads, they wrote op-eds and blogs and said Newt wasn't really a conservative and that he's dangerously unstable.
So Newt Gingrich responded to these accusations that he was crazy by promising - and he did this - that by the end of this second term, we'd have a permanent base on the moon.
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SAGAL: He did that. He started the speech by saying they called me crazy, I tell you, crazy. I'll show them.
GROSZ: I'll be on my ninth wife. We'll live on the moon.
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GROSZ: Reagan will be alive again.
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GROSZ: We will be in utopia.
SAGAL: At the debate on Thursday, more than anything, it was a contest between Romney and Gingrich to prove who was more like Ronald Reagan. Romney, for instance, said just this week he had told the decorators in his fourth home to "tear down this wall."
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SAGAL: Because I want a picture window.
GROSZ: Romney has Reagan's hair, right?
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SAGAL: He does have this movie - that's true.
GROSZ: And Newt has eaten all of Regan's jelly beans.
SAGAL: That's true.
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SAGAL: All right, very good, Jon, here is your last quote.
KASELL: They already know more about you than your wife does.
SAGAL: That was Larry Dignan of the tech site ZDNet. He was telling us there's nothing we can do now that what big internet company is going to be prying even deeper into our privacy.
ALTMAN: Google.
SAGAL: Yes.
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SAGAL: Yes, indeed. Now you may remember - Google, yes.
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SAGAL: You may remember that when Google started, their motto was Don't Be Evil. Well, now they've revised it to?
KASELL: Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.
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SAGAL: So Google modified its privacy policy so now that all of its services know everything about you, they share information.
GROSZ: It would be great if you were watching like a keyboard cats video on YouTube and then all of the sudden like an ad for cat food came up.
SAGAL: That's pretty much what happens.
ROBERTS: That's what's going to happen.
GROSZ: Yeah, that is what's going to happen?
SAGAL: This is interesting.
GROSZ: Because that's not why you're watching keyboard cat.
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SAGAL: One of the things that people have discovered this week is that Google collects information on your computer in which they figure out, based on what you do, who you are, your age, your sex and your interests.
So, for example, I did this and Google thinks I'm a man, that's good. They think I'm 55 to 60, that's not so good.
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GROSZ: Oh yeah.
BABYLON: Well, maybe you know what, maybe you should start doing just random searches to throw Google off.
SAGAL: Right. Like I've been doing nothing but watching Justin Bieber videos, trying to bring my age down.
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GROSZ: Once they have you pegged as a 55-year-old man, though, they're going to be like...
BABYLON: Uh-oh.
GROSZ: ...police, this is where Peter Sagal lives.
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Jon do on our quiz?
KASELL: Well, Jon had enough correct answers, Peter, so Jon, you win our prize.
SAGAL: Well done.
KASELL: Congratulations.
ALTMAN: Yay.
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SAGAL: Congratulations, Jon and thanks for playing.
ALTMAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.