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.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl. Thank you so much, everybody. Oh, you guys are too nice. We do have a really fun show for you today. We've got Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to fly in space. She'll be joining us later to play our games.
It's an amazing achievement, but let's be honest with each other, it's a lot easier to smash through the glass ceiling when you've got 800,000 pounds of rocket fuel.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But first, it's your turn. Give us call, the number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME.
DIANA HSU: Hi, this is Diana from Somerville, Massachusetts.
SAGAL: Hey, Diana, how are you?
HSU: I'm doing well, yeah, thanks.
SAGAL: I'm glad to hear it, yeah, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You sound like, OK, I'm fine. It's like good at this moment. That's good.
HSU: I am just really excited because this is what I wanted before I went off and moved to China for a year.
SAGAL: Oh you're moving to China for a year?
HSU: I am.
SAGAL: But this is one of the things you wanted to do before you left.
HSU: Yeah, you know, bring a bit of American NPR with me to China, that kind of thing.
SAGAL: Right. If you win Carl's voice on your home answering machine or voicemail, you can just have him say, "She's not here, she's in China."
(LAUGHTER)
HSU: It's true.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show. Diana, let me introduce you to our panel today. First up, it's a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, Ms. Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Hi, Diana.
HSU: Hi, Faith.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next, it's the man behind Esquire's politics blog and a contributor to grantland, it's Charlie Pierce.
CHARLIE PIERCE: Hi, Diana.
HSU: Hi, Charlie.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And lastly, a comedian and co-host of The Morning Amp on vocolo.org, the prince of Bronzeville, Mr. Brian Babylon.
BRIAN BABYLON: Hey, Diana, how are you?
HSU: Hi, Brian. I'm good.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Diana. You'll start us off, of course, with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell, once again, will recreate three quotations from the week's news. Your job, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Ready to go?
HSU: Sure, yeah.
SAGAL: All right. Now, your first quote comes from a man named Jack Harbaugh. He was talking about when his son John decided what he wanted to do for a living.
KASELL: He told us, "I think I want to try coaching." His mom went face down into the mashed potatoes.
SAGAL: Coaching worked out, though. This weekend, Jim Harbaugh will be facing off against his brother Jim in what big game?
HSU: The Super Bowl.
SAGAL: The Super Bowl, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Yay. It's so exciting. It's the biggest, most important Super Bowl we've had in a year.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This time, there's all this hype because the two opposing coaches are brothers, Jim and John Harbaugh. The media has been trying to come up with a nickname for the game: The Bro Bowl, the Har-bowl, the Super Baugh, the Super Bowl with Two Team Coached by Two Brothers named Harbaugh.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Super Bowl XLVII: The Battle for Mom's Love.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I mean, is this legitimately interesting or is this just a gimmick?
PIERCE: No.
SALIE: That they're brothers or that there's a Super Bowl?
SAGAL: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
PIERCE: I'll handle the first part. No, it's not interesting that they're brothers.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: I find the fact that they're brothers far more interesting than the game to watch.
BABYLON: Oh, come on.
PIERCE: You are such a girl.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: You know, I just want to say to all the people in Baltimore and all the people in the Bay area, we apologize from NPR.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The other reason this game is so exciting for football fans is it will be the last game for retiring Baltimore Ravens' linebacker Ray Lewis. He's had an amazing career, winning Defensive Player of the Year twice. And in the year 2000, he contributed to both a legendary defensive team and the stabbing death of two guys outside a nightclub.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He says he's looking forward to his retirement so he can spend more time stabbing his family.
(LAUGHTER)
PIERCE: Whoa.
SALIE: Stabbing his family with his deer antlers.
SAGAL: Exactly. This is the other thing. As Faith said, just days before the game, an article came out in Sports Illustrated, suggesting that Mr. Lewis, among other athletes, had used deer antler spray, which purports to help you grow muscle as fast as a deer grows antlers. That's really the idea. Lewis responded angrily to the accusations, in the media scrum there at the Super Bowl.
BABYLON: I'll stab you.
SAGAL: He pawed the ground...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, you don't want to make him angry. He pawed the ground with his hoof and then charged the reporter who asked him about it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But here's the good thing, if the 49ers win, they get to mount Ray Lewis' head in their locker room.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And he's a 10-pointer now. He's very impressive.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Diana, your next quote comes from Arizona Senator John McCain.
KASELL: Vamanos.
SAGAL: And here's President Barack Obama.
KASELL: Manana.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The President and Senator McCain were both showing off their bilingual skills this week while talking about what?
HSU: Immigration reform.
SAGAL: Yes, very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Before the election, immigration reform was a dead issue because the Republicans were so opposed to it. Then Mitt Romney got exactly six Hispanic votes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: One of those was actually just the white CEO of Taco Bell.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Another was a hedge fund manager named Shapiro. Romney assumed he was Latino because his name ended in a vowel.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Republicans have been falling over each other since then to prove their enthusiasm for Latinos. Sean Hannity, who had been completely opposed to what he called amnesty, on a show this week put on a sombrero, pulled out a guitar and played traditional Latin songs like, "The Girl We're Not Going to Send Back to Ipanema."
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: And you know what, let me just say, at the end of the day, our friends from the north, they like how we're, like, distracting on all the, you know, Mexico talk and thinking those people are, you know, you know, border crossers. But it's those Canadians we need to watch out for.
SAGAL: Really?
BABYLON: Every one...
SAGAL: You think we're building a fence on the wrong border.
BABYLON: On the wrong border. Before we know it, you know, it's going to be horrible mustaches and crappy sweaters.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: And everything is going to be - it's going to be horrible.
(LAUGHTER)
PIERCE: National health care.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: Diana, here is your last quote.
KASELL: It's hard to imagine what it will be like next week, when I wake and have nowhere to go. Maybe I'll go back to sleep for a change.
SAGAL: That was somebody who is leaving her job, or who left her job on Friday, who is finally going to get the chance to sleep in.
HSU: That would be Hillary Clinton.
SAGAL: Yes, Hillary Clinton, very well done.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state ended on Friday. To celebrate her time in office, the State Department released an impressive bunch of statistics compiled over her four years. Total number of countries visited: 112. Total time in transit: 2,084 hours, or 86.8 days. Total frequent flier miles: 950,000. Total text messages from Bill Clinton lying about where he was at that moment: 1,740.
(LAUGHTER)
PIERCE: Wait a minute. I know you made up the last one. Is the frequent flier miles true?
SAGAL: Yeah, those are all true, yeah.
BABYLON: Almost a million miles.
PIERCE: Does she get the miles?
SAGAL: She is like Sapphire status. She is like...
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: She's not flying Southwest.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah.
PIERCE: Yeah, she's flying the Washington Jakarta shuttle on Southwest.
BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: No, I believe she has her own, but I think they were just saying this is...
SALIE: She's Zone 1 though. She is Zone 1.
SAGAL: Yeah, she is pretty much. When she does fly southwest, she gets to board first, let me tell you.
SALIE: Yeah.
BABYLON: You ever see those people, the way they walk on, thinking they're just better than you?
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: Those preferred blah-blah customers, go on in. Then they go and they're sitting down looking at you when you walk by, like "I've been here an extra five minutes."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Meanwhile, poor John Kerry, the new secretary of state, as soon as he took over the job, everybody ceased to care about the secretary of state.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: In an attempt to make people notice him, John Kerry pointed out, like, hey, I'm also wearing a pantsuit. Look.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I can be spunky.
BABYLON: There's no spark to John Kerry.
SAGAL: There isn't.
BABYLON: What is that?
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: What is that?
SAGAL: I don't know; I fell asleep thinking about it.
BABYLON: The only time...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Diana do on our quiz?
KASELL: Very well, Peter. Diana, you had three correct answers, so you win our prize.
SAGAL: Well done.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing, Diana.
HSU: Thank you. Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye, and good luck in China.
HSU: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.