CARL KASELL, HOST:
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.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you guys. We have got a great show for you today. But first...
KASELL: Woof, woof.
SAGAL: What's that, Carl?
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SAGAL: Is there something wrong? Is someone caught in the well?
KASELL: Woof.
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SAGAL: So I just finished Susan Orlean's book on Rin Tin Tin and I really want a brave, loyal canine companion of my own. Right, boy?
KASELL: I wonder if it's too late to go back to the newscast?
SAGAL: Down, boy. Down.
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SAGAL: Well, Susan Orlean will be joining us later. But right now it's the listeners' turn. Give us call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
BRENT MORVAY: Hi, this Brent Morvay from Billings, Montana.
SAGAL: Hey Brent, what do you do there?
MORVAY: I am a biomed engineer.
SAGAL: Okay. Which involves doing what?
MORVAY: That means I travel around to little hospitals all over Montana and Wyoming and ensure that all the equipment is safe for patients to use.
SAGAL: Really? So, like, you're dealing with, like, this complicated medical equipment? The things with the pumps and the beeps and the...
MORVAY: Yeah, all that kind of crazy stuff.
SAGAL: You know, does that actually do anything? Because I've always wondered whenever I've been in a hospital, like most of the stuff is just there to make me think that I'm being taken care of.
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MORVAY: Well, you know, it's just all those little beeps that go on your bill.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: Well welcome to the show, Brent. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, say hello to a television personality and a correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning," Mr. Mo Rocca.
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MORVAY: Hi, Mo.
MO ROCCA: Hi, Brent.
SAGAL: Next, it's one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source column, Ms. Roxanne Roberts is here.
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ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hi, Brent.
MORVAY: Hi.
SAGAL: Finally, it's the host of the world dominating podcast, "Too Beautiful to Live," Mr. Luke Burbank.
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LUKE BURBANK: Hey, Brent.
MORVAY: Hi, Luke.
SAGAL: So Brent, welcome to the show. You are going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell will now read to you three quotes from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you will win our prize, Carl Kasell's voice on your home answering machine. Ready to go?
MORVAY: I am.
SAGAL: All right, here we go. Here's your first quote. It is a presidential candidate, dismissing yet another woman who came forward with accusations of sexual shenanigans.
KASELL: It's probably an infinite number of people who could come forward with a story.
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PERSONALITY: Apparently so.
SAGAL: So which is the candidate who's warning us this won't be over for a while?
MORVAY: I'm thinking it might be Herman Cain.
SAGAL: You think? Yes.
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SAGAL: It is Herman Cain. Well done. This week, we heard from the fifth woman, by our count, who independently decided to make up stories about Herman Cain's sex life, because, as he explained, they really don't want a businessman in the White House. This one says she had an affair with him for 13 years. Man, you must really hate businessmen to pretend to have sex with one for 13 years.
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PERSONALITY: That's commitment, 13 years.
SAGAL: It really is, 13 years.
PERSONALITY: That's, I mean, you know, most marriages don't last that long.
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: Now, this is what's happened this week. Conservatives backed Cain in the face of multiple credible accusations of sexual harassment, but now they're abandoning him. Apparently, hitting on women is only a sin if it works.
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SAGAL: So, instead, his conservative supporters are turning Newt Gingrich.
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SAGAL: It turns out that they're not bothered by adultery; they just want someone who's good at it.
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SAGAL: They want a president who is ready, who is trained, who is ready to cheat on day one. Because, what if that booty call comes at 3 a.m.?
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PERSONALITY: That's hilarious. Who's going to answer the booty call at 3 a.m.?
SAGAL: Absolutely.
PERSONALITY: Be prepared.
SAGAL: Yes, this is the president. Why hello.
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PERSONALITY: I want a president who can multitask, and clearly he can.
SAGAL: That's true. But the best thing about this was that warning that Carl quoted, that there might be an infinite number of these stories. An infinite number?
BURBANK: Wow.
SAGAL: Do you know if you put an infinite number of Herman Cain's mistresses in a room, with an infinite number of typewriters, they still could not come up with a single reason he should be president.
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PERSONALITY: Man.
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PERSONALITY: Herman Cain and all his women, now that's a big tent.
SAGAL: That really is. I love the idea of there being an infinite number of mistresses. Why Herman Cain has more mistresses than there are stars in the sky.
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SAGAL: For a small fee to our mistress registry, you can have one of them named after your loved one.
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PERSONALITY: I think it's a thousand points of one-night stands.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: Somewhere, Wilt Chamberlain is going "damn."
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SAGAL: All right, very good, here is your next quote.
KASELL: The foreign ministry regrets the protests that led to some unacceptable behaviors.
SAGAL: Now that was from the Foreign Ministry of Iran, apologizing after some Iranians engaged in what, quote, "unacceptable behavior," this week?
MORVAY: Tearing down the British Embassy.
SAGAL: That's exactly what they did.
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SAGAL: And we can kind of commiserate with what the Iranians were going through, because here in the United States, we like to relive our glory days, you know. We have rock reunion tours and gigantic cars and prescription Viagra.
Well, they get nostalgic in Iran too. This week, students tried to recreate the magic of their old days of the 70s by storming the British Embassy. They played the same songs they had from that period, "Death to America," "In No Way Free Bird."
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PERSONALITY: "Summer of Jihad."
SAGAL: "Everybody Must Get Stoned For Adultery."
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SAGAL: But it's not the same. You know how it is, it's not the same. Now if you want to storm an embassy, Ticketmaster charges a $10 riot fee.
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PERSONALITY: That's why I'm glad that Michele Bachman stood up to talk about this whole thing.
SAGAL: She did. Michele Bachmann, as you know, announced that if she were president, she would then close the U.S. embassy in Iran.
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SAGAL: Which was closed 30 years ago. You may remember there was a little bit of a kerfuffle about our embassy.
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PERSONALITY: And she's going to do that right after she captures Saddam Hussein and kills Osama bin Laden.
SAGAL: Right, exactly. No, what happened was is the candidate - they said well what is she talking about, we haven't had an embassy there for decades. And she said, no, she was speaking hypothetically. She was speaking hypothetically.
BURBANK: No, there is a Quizno's there, though, that has three Americans working in it. So she would pull them out of the Quizno's.
SAGAL: Right.
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SAGAL: And then she would seize the Iranian's unicorns. The Iranian government...
PERSONALITY: And then she'd demand that the Soviets tear down that wall.
SAGAL: Absolutely.
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SAGAL: All right, very good, Brent. Here is your last quote.
KASELL: It's a extraterrestrial real estate appraisal.
SAGAL: That was a scientist at NASA, talking about what new mission that launched this week?
MORVAY: Oh gosh, a mission to Mars.
SAGAL: A mission to Mars, yes.
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SAGAL: It's the new Mars rover. NASA has launched a new robot rover, which will arrive on Mars for a mission, to find out if that planet ever had the conditions that make life possible namely liquid water, organic compounds, and a reliable wireless connection.
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BURBANK: Wait a second; we're going all the way up there to look around? There's got to be some kind of a Google Map function you can street view.
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BURBANK: Most of Mars at this point, I assume...
SAGAL: Actually, I've got to say I'm a bit of a space geek and this is so cool, it'll be sent with what they're calling the Sky Crane, right. And this is this enormous flying device that will fly down to the planet and then it will sort of suspend itself and lower the rover on a cable.
PERSONALITY: Oh gosh.
SAGAL: Release it softly to the ground. And then the Sky Crane will fly away and crash far away, right. So it's this thing that's going to travel with it and then make sure it gets there safely and then sacrifice itself. They're sending the rover with its mother.
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SAGAL: And that's kind of self-sacrificing mother, it's going to lie there and it's going to say, "no, don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I just wanted you to be safe. Have fun roving."
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Brent do on our quiz?
KASELL: Peter, Brent had three correct answers. So, Brent, you win our prize.
SAGAL: Brent, well done.
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MORVAY: Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
MORVAY: Thank you, Peter. Bye-bye.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.