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 Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. You know, thanks everybody, we got a great show for you today. You hear a lot about Washington these days. Some say it's a horribly dysfunctional rat's nest of corruption and special interests. But, there are others who insist it's a vicious den of psychopaths determined to destroy America.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And we came here and we found out, you know, they're both right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Who says you can't find common ground anymore? That being the case, we decided to stay well clear of the place. We're coming to you from a safe distance away in North Bethesda, Maryland. Any closer, we'd be at risk of exposure.
We'll be talking about what the First Family eats with White House Chef Sam Kass, and of course asking you to answer our questions. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
ANDRES BARRAZA: Hi, this is Andres Barraza from San Francisco.
SAGAL: Hey Andres, how are you?
BARRAZA: I'm doing all right.
SAGAL: I like the way you said your name.
MO ROCCA: It's awesome.
BARRAZA: Yeah.
SAGAL: I have a little crush on you now.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It came from nowhere. I know this won't amount to anything. But look, we just met, so, you know my number. Call me maybe. Oh, you did.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: I guess we've moved beyond that technically because you already called. Andres, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, say hello to one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source column. Ms. Roxanne Roberts is here.
(APPLAUSE)
BARRAZA: Hi, Roxanne.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hello. Would you say your name for me too?
BARRAZA: Andres.
ROBERTS: Ah.
SAGAL: He's mine, Roxanne.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Next, say hello to a real life correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning," Mr. Mo Rocca.
(APPLAUSE)
ROCCA: Andres, it's great to talk to you.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And next, a humorist and author of the new book, "Don't Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards," Mr. P.J. O'Rourke.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Andres, welcome to the show. You're going to start us off, of course, with 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 just two of them, you'll win our prize: Carl's voice on your home answering machine. You ready to play?
BARRAZA: I hope, yeah.
SAGAL: I hope so too. Here is your first quote.
KASELL: Look, toddler. You want to eat those apple slices. Mickey says so.
SAGAL: That was a writer in the Christian Science Monitor writing about the Walt Disney Company joining the national fight on what?
BARRAZA: Junk food.
SAGAL: Yes, exactly, very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Or rather, very bad. The war on junk food is on now. This week, the Walt Disney Company joined the battle. They announced that they will no longer allow unhealthy food to be advertised to kids on their various programs and networks.
Well, that's great, but seriously, what else is there to advertise to kids? It'll be a couple of Barbie ads, and then a guy will come on and say, "Look, kids, I can't tell you what Viagra is, but mention it to your dad. OK?"
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
ROCCA: It's so hard to imagine like Goofy eating celery. I mean some of these Disney characters...
SAGAL: Yeah.
ROCCA: Are they going to have to model healthy behavior now?
SAGAL: Well, it's weird when you have essentially walking talking animals of any kind advising you to eat healthier meats.
ROCCA: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I mean, think about it. But now Disney is a combatant in the junk food war. You know, I mean I remember when it started everybody thought it was going to be quick and glorious. But now people realized we meant their junk food. And people are like, first they came for the Little Debbie snack cakes, and I said nothing, because I prefer Hostess.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So people will start protesting against the war, right? And we'll get marches that leaves us out of breath now. They'll be sit-ins, more sit-ins.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: The war on junk food, that's bad.
SAGAL: That's bad. They'll be like, "you see this gut? I got this during the war on junk food."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: On cold days it still juggles sometimes.
(LAUGHTER)
P.J. O'ROURKE: Not to mention the Purple Heart disease.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And then, of course, Michael Bloomberg, as you know, he made it illegal to sell more than 16 ounces of soda at a time, right?
ROCCA: Yeah.
ROBERTS: Because your average person can't figure out that they can have ten 10-ounce drinks but they're not allowed one 20-ounce.
SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.
O'ROURKE: Mayor Bloomberg is just banning these things because they're taller than he is, basically.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: I love all this stuff. It's making us all healthier.
SAGAL: That's great; he's going to be standing out there in Times Square. It's like, you can't drink anything taller than this man.
ROCCA: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
O'ROURKE: You must be shorter than the mayor.
SAGAL: All right, very good, Andres. Here is your next quote.
KASELL: Can I slap you?
SAGAL: That was a question asked by a woman who was meeting the losing candidate in a big recall election on Tuesday. And she said that right before she slapped him. What was the election?
BARRAZA: The Wisconsin governor recall.
SAGAL: Exactly, the Wisconsin recall, very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: That woman was one of the many Democrats who wanted to get rid of Republican Governor Scott Walker, and, as it turned out, by slapping the losing candidate Tom Barrett, she became the only Democrat in the state of Wisconsin who actually made an impact.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: She slapped him because she was upset?
SAGAL: She slapped him because she was upset that he had conceded.
ROCCA: Oh, OK.
SAGAL: The Wisconsin Democrats got a rare chance to redo the election from two years ago, and what do they do, they ran the same guy again Walker who lost the first time. It's like, sure, you didn't like him before, but now look, he's two years older.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It was like a more expensive sequel to a movie nobody liked the first time. This was the "Waterworld 2" of elections.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Governor Walker, to his credit, immediately after his re-victory, I guess, reached out to his opponents, many of whom were union leaders he'd spent the last two years trying to destroy. He invited them over for bratwurst and beer. You know, we'll all get together. We'll have something to eat. He was seen holding a book under his arm. It was called "To Serve Wisconsin."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Oh no, it's a cookbook.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Oh wait, oh my gosh, what is he going to cook. Oh, the joke was that he was going to cook people. Is that it? Or no, it's not it. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This is great. Our show comes with annotations.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, very good. Here, Andres, is your last quote.
KASELL: "OK, the guy who ended the war in Iraq? That guy? He's coming to my house for dinner."
SAGAL: That was actress Sarah Jessica Parker, being very excited as she announced her dinner date with whom?
BARRAZA: The president.
SAGAL: Yes, President Obama. Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Indeed. The Obama Campaign's first national TV ad featured Ms. Parker, auctioning off a chance to have dinner with her, Mr. And Mrs. Obama, and Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue.
This is the second big celebrity dinner they're raffling off, and it looks like the president is getting a little desperate. Are we really going to pick our next leader based on who offers us the best raffle prizes? I mean, it's like, well gosh, Obama has dinner with Sarah Jessica Parker. Romney's offering an RV. Ron Paul has a dinette set. Maybe we should reconsider him.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: So, I don't understand. So what's the point?
SAGAL: The idea is that if you, the individual out here watching the ad, were to donate to the Obama campaign, you would be entered in a raffle to win a chance to go have dinner with...
ROCCA: Oh, be with the two of them?
SAGAL: Yeah, the whole crowd, the A-list crowd.
O'ROURKE: If you're like Bill Maher and you pay a million dollars, can you get out of it?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Plus, you said Anna Wintour of Vogue and Sarah Jessica Parker, so there's not going to be any food. You know?
SAGAL: That's true.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: It's like celery sticks.
(APPLAUSE)
O'ROURKE: These people are in league with Disney.
SAGAL: In addition to the star of "Sex and the City," which went off the air eight years ago, the President also this week flew Jon Bon Jovi in Air Force One to a fundraiser, and was endorsed in a video by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He'll have this thing locked up if he was running for President of the Nineties.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Andres do on our quiz?
KASELL: Andres, you had three correct answers. So I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or home answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done.
O'ROURKE: Well done, Andres.
(APPLAUSE)
BARRAZA: Thank you, guys.
SAGAL: Thanks a lot, Andres.
BARRAZA: Have a good one.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.