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 Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl. Thank you everybody. Yeah, I feel the same way, very excited to be here, at long last, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is of course famous for three things. The first is beer.
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SAGAL: And once you've finished with that, you can't remember the other two.
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SAGAL: We're going to be talking about Milwaukee and we're going to be talking about beer, and we're going to be talking about Milwaukee beer, with Randy Sprecher, whose beer has made Milwaukee famous all over again.
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SAGAL: And of course, we're going to be talking with you, too, so give us a call, the number, of course, 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. It is now time to welcome our very first contestant. Hi, welcome to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
SALENA SANFORD: Hi, Peter. This is Salena Sanford from Portland, Oregon.
SAGAL: Ah, Portland is a lovely place, been there many times.
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SAGAL: Also fancies itself a beer city, if I'm not mistaken.
SANFORD: Absolutely.
SAGAL: Posers. Pretenders.
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SAGAL: Here they make it by the vat.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show, Salena, let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, it's a contributor to "CBS Sunday Morning" and host of this week's National Book Awards, it's Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Hi, Salena.
SANFORD: Hi, Faith.
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SAGAL: Next, it's the man behind Esquire's politics blog and a contributor to Grantland.com. It's Charlie Pierce is here.
CHARLIE PIERCE: Hi, Salena.
SANFORD: Hey, Charlie.
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SAGAL: And it's a correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning" and the host of "My Grandmother's Ravioli," Wednesdays on the Cooking Channel, it's Mo Rocca.
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MO ROCCA: Hi, Salena.
SAGAL: Salena, you are going to start us off with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell will, of course, recreate for you three quotations from the week's news. You know your job: explain or identify two of those. Do that you'll win our prize, Carl's voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?
SANFORD: I am.
SAGAL: Let us go. Your first quote is a headline from The New York Post on Saturday.
KASELL: "Cloak and Shag Her."
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SAGAL: Or maybe you'd prefer this from the New York Daily News on Tuesday?
KASELL: "In the Line of Booty."
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SAGAL: So those are the headlines, what was the story?
SANFORD: The General Petraeus/Paula Broadwell scandal.
SAGAL: Indeed, the Petraeus affair, as it will be called in the history books.
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ROCCA: I'm sorry. Wasn't that an incomplete answer?
SAGAL: I'm sorry.
ROCCA: She only named two people.
SAGAL: Yes, I know, she only named two people. I mean, I should try to catch people up, who aren't as up on this as our three panelists are.
ROCCA: Yeah.
SAGAL: What of course happened is that General David Petraeus has joined the great fraternity of men brought down by a sex scandal. They're going to chisel his already chiseled face next to Tiger Woods, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, the four faces engraved into Mount Shagmore.
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SAGAL: And even though the CIA director resigned last week, because of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell - this is true - they apparently bonded while running in Afghanistan. How do you have an affair while running? It's like, well, first there are two sets of footprints on the sand, and then there was one. Yes, that's where we were humping.
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SAGAL: And how does the CIA director get caught in an affair? He took all the precautions. He stamped "Top Secret" on his emails.
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SAGAL: He should have worn - because he is ex-military, we know - he should have worn his adultery camo uniform.
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SAGAL: It has the pattern of a cheap motel bed sheet.
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SAGAL: It's like, hmm, Ms. Broadwell, that bed you're lying in by yourself looks awfully lumpy.
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ROCCA: It was so nice when the scandal began, because it only took place in Washington and Afghanistan. But it was inevitable that Florida would get involved.
SAGAL: I know.
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ROCCA: Florida is like a child having a tantrum, a hissy fit. They didn't dominate the election for more than four days. It only took them four days this time to count their votes.
SAGAL: Right, right, right.
ROCCA: So then they had to get in on this. They couldn't resist.
SAGAL: It is also strange that a spy gets taken down for a sex scandal. I mean...
ROCCA: Spies have sex, otherwise...
SAGAL: I know. I mean, can you imagine if they treated all spies this way? It's like authorities have uncovered a trove of emails between James Bond and a woman named Pussy Galore.
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SAGAL: He's been asked to step down, under allegations he may have had sex with everyone in the world.
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ROCCA: Why does any of this even matter? Seriously, I mean I feel like if all these reporters had actual sex lives, they wouldn't be spending all this time on this topic.
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ROCCA: It's all jealousy.
SALIE: So let's remember....
ROCCA: That an old guy like this is, you know, I mean, good for him.
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SAGAL: We have to admit though, in the end, it's nice that in the hierarchical world of the military there was one general who was interested in the privates.
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SAGAL: That's what they said about General Petraeus. That's what they said about General Petraeus. He was always willing to do the grunt work.
SALIE: Oh.
SAGAL: I think we better move on now, don't you?
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SAGAL: Here is your next quote; it's from Warren Buffett.
KASELL: We're not going to permanently cripple ourselves because 535 people can't get along.
SAGAL: Mr. Buffet was referring to what impending, financially crippling event?
SANFORD: I think that would be Congress getting together on the fiscal cliff.
SAGAL: Yes, the fiscal cliff, that's right.
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SAGAL: Everybody is terrified of the fiscal cliff. No one is exactly sure what it is. It sounds like the most boring guy in your frat. Oh, you know, there's Drum Circle Doug, Lady Killer Bob. Oh, the guy with the glasses? That's Fiscal Cliff.
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ROCCA: That's hysterical.
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SAGAL: On January 1st, a series of terrible things will all happen at once. Tax rates will go up for everybody. The payroll tax cut will expire. There'll be massive forced cuts to defense and entitlements, and the nation will be plunged into recession. This will be the worst New Years we've had since Dick Clark hosted "New Year's Rocking Eve" six months after he died.
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ROCCA: Ouch. Too soon.
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SAGAL: That's a credit to his persistence. He wouldn't...
ROCCA: It should be the fiscal bluff or the fiscal palisades.
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PIERCE: I prefer the gentle fiscal incline.
ROCCA: The fiscal incline?
PIERCE: It feels...
ROCCA: Well, it's also wheelchair accessible that way.
SALIE: That's right.
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SALIE: For the seniors.
PIERCE: Under the American's Disabilities Act, we need to add a ramp to the fiscal cliff.
SAGAL: So anyway, so this is all going to happen. The President and the Republicans, they've been arguing in public. The President says, you know, hey, we got to raise taxes. The Republicans say no, no, no, you have no mandate to raise taxes. Americans really prefer the ideas that Mitt Romney put forward. And it's like, oh, man, if only there was a way in which the American people could express their preference...
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SAGAL: ...somehow vote on which approach they preferred. I don't know. Here is your last quote.
KASELL: "Where are you, you spongy, yellow, delicious bastards?"
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ROCCA: What's that?
SAGAL: That was really Woody Harrelson in the 2009 movie "Zombieland," searching for Twinkies. That hopeless search became a reality for everyone this week when what company went under?
SANFORD: Hostess.
SAGAL: Yes. Yes.
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SAGAL: All week, we stared in horror as the deadline approached and America nearly went over the Twinkie Cliff.
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SAGAL: Hostess Incorporated, they make Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Wonder Bread, Fudge-Puppies, Fat-Crammers and Lard bursts...
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SAGAL: ...said they would liquidate the company if striking workers didn't come back to work.
ROCCA: What does that look like when it's liquidated?
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ROCCA: It's a neon-colored.
SALIE: And then Chris Christie ordered all the workers back to work.
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SAGAL: Yeah, dammit. He was in there; he was operating the machinery himself.
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SAGAL: The union - this is true - the union is the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, also known as the Everything We Do Is Bad for You Union.
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SAGAL: They make Twinkies, candy and cigarettes. It's like the League of Supervillains Local 619.
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Salena do on our quiz?
KASELL: Salena, congratulations, you had three correct answers, so you win our prize.
SAGAL: Well done.
SANFORD: Thank you.
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SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing.
SANFORD: Thanks.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
SANFORD: Bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.