Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, October 25, 2014
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: Captain Contagious; President Who?; Stop The Presses.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm heaven-sent anchorman Bill Kurtis.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: And here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks everybody. Thank you so much. We have a wonderful show for you today. We've got legendary TV mom Mrs. Brady herself, Florence Henderson. She'll be coming on later to play our games. The only question is what we're going to talk about with her other than the fact that the guy who played Greg Brady, her son on the show, called her a quote, "white-hot babe."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: We've got about half an hour to think of something. In the meantime, we'll be happy to hear your unnerving confessions while you play our game. The number to call is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
PAIGE BURKHOLDER: Hi.
SAGAL: Well, hello. Who's this?
BURKHOLDER: This is Page.
SAGAL: Hello, Page. How are you?
BURKHOLDER: I'm great. I'm calling from Brooklyn.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Brooklyn?
BURKHOLDER: Brooklyn is really hip.
SAGAL: I've heard.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: What do you do there in Brooklyn?
BURKHOLDER: I'm a psychiatrist.
SAGAL: Oh, I bet there's lots of work.
BURKHOLDER: There is.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Do people come in wearing beards and skinny jeans and...
BURKHOLDER: Not the people I treat.
SAGAL: OK. All right. I'm just imagining somebody coming in and going, doctor I feel I'm a cliche.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Page welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian opening for Hannibal Buress November 7 in New York City, it's Brian Babylon.
(APPLAUSE)
BRIAN BABYLON: Hi Page.
BURKHOLDER: Hi Brian.
SAGAL: Next, the syndicated advice columnist behind Ask Amy, Amy Dickinson is here.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And an author whose latest book "Alphabetter Juice" is now out in paperback, it's Roy Blount Jr.
ROY BLOUNT JR.: Hey.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So Page, you'll start us off, of course, with Who's Bill This Time, as is now tradition. Bill Kurtis will create for you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you will win our prize - the voice of scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell on your voicemail at home. You ready to play?
BURKHOLDER: Yes.
SAGAL: All right, here is your first quote.
KURTIS: He's not an Ebola expert.
SAGAL: That was White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest talking about the man who the White House has put in charge of what?
BURKHOLDER: Ebola - the Ebola czar.
SAGAL: Exactly right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The White House has given in to pressure and selected an Ebola czar. A man named Ron Klain - he has no medical training but he has experience handling uncontrollable dangerous outbreaks because he used to work with Joe Biden.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The White House says that Mr. Klain, the Ebola czar, will be there in part to quell the panic about Ebola, but he will remain largely behind-the-scenes. Asked why he won't be out there with the public, the White House said, are you kidding? There's Ebola out there.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT: Ebola czar sounds like a Venezuelan shortstop.
AMY DICKINSON: Ebola czar. And, you know, like this will never happen so, I mean, in a world - in another world if a woman - God forbid - were ever chosen to like head something like this...
BABYLON: Wait, there's never been a lady czar?.
DICKINSON: Of course not.
BABYLON: Wow rude.
DICKINSON: Of course not.
BLOUNT: They would be a czarina...
DICKINSON: But would they call - would they call her a czarina?
SAGAL: I hope so. If it was a child it would be a czardine (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, Page, here is your next quote.
BURKHOLDER: All right.
KURTIS: Hey - hey, don't touch my girlfriend.
SAGAL: That was one of many people showing no respect at all to what important person this week?
BURKHOLDER: I have no idea. Can I get a hint?
SAGAL: Well, this person was voting near his home in Chicago when somebody shouted that at him.
BURKHOLDER: Oh, President Obama when he was voting.
SAGAL: Yes indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: President Obama was voting. It is tough to be the president these days. Nobody wants to be seen with him, especially Democrats running for office. He's only campaigned in places where he's welcomed, like Maryland and Illinois. Malia and Sasha are now registered Republicans.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, you know, they're rebellious teens. Things got so bad for President Obama this week that he is now the one person the Secret Service won't just let right into the White House.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT: I thought that the president handled that voting thing. Most people would just say, huh? But he went right along with it and scored some points off the guy. It was almost as if he gets this a lot. You know, it's like, here's somebody else telling me not to touch them.
SAGAL: Here's what happened. We should talk about this. So like I said, he was in Chicago. He was early. He went to cast an early ballot and he was standing there next to a woman - a young woman, and the guy yelled hey, don't touch my girlfriend. How far has he fallen - back in 2008 people were shouting please touch my girlfriend.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: Do you think - what can he do? Do you think if he did like - if he want back to like...
DICKINSON: "Dancing With The Stars."
BABYLON: "Dancing With The Stars."
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: Or - cause, you know, he has like a little gray now, what if he did like one of those like, you know...
DICKINSON: Just For Men.
BABYLON: Just For Men, blacken the hair back up. Get a little fresh face Obama. You know what I'm saying? That might work.
SAGAL: The amazing thing is he is the sitting president. He was elected by the largest margins of any president - two-term president in history. And nobody wants anything to do with them. Members of his own party - a lot of his former supporters are now taking extreme measures to avoid him. For example, Renee Zellweger got a disguise.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right Page, you still have one more question.
BURKHOLDER: All right. Yes.
SAGAL: For your last one, here is a series of quotes from a legend of newspapering.
KURTIS: You f'ed up big time.
SAGAL: And...
KURTIS: File under a-holes.
SAGAL: And...
KURTIS: If you spit in my face you would regret it.
SAGAL: That shy understated newspaperman passed away this week. Who was it?
BURKHOLDER: Ben Bradlee.
SAGAL: Yes indeed, Ben Bradlee.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Page is there somebody there whispering answers to you?
BURKHOLDER: No, no, I was whispering to myself.
SAGAL: Oh, certainly. So you're saying...
BLOUNT: Self-diagnosis.
SAGAL: ...You're saying that you talk to yourself. Do you have like different voices?
BURKHOLDER: No, I said - you started newspaper and I said Ben Bradlee, Ben Bradlee.
SAGAL: And then did another voice say, no it's not. Shut up.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKHOLDER: So I do talk to people who hear voices a lot.
SAGAL: Anyway, yes, Ben Bradlee the legendary newspaper editor died at his Washington home at the age of 93 this week, outliving the newspaper industry itself by about five years.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: But those quotes - Peter, those quotes sounded like "Dirty Harry."
SAGAL: He took no grief. He gave as good as he got. Everyone in newspaper journalism and everybody over 50, which is more or less the same thing, when into mourning saying Bradlee would go down in history as the second most famous newspaper journalist of all time after Clark Kent.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: So he was around when they used to have like two papers a day...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: ...In the good old days.
SAGAL: In fact, when he took over the Washington Post the mid-60s, they were being beaten everyday by The Washington Star, the evening paper, which no longer exists.
BABYLON: Two papers a day, huh?
SAGAL: Well, one of the reasons that people are so sad to be Ben Bradlee go is that he represented an era when newspapers still mattered. Right? It's hard to imagine a day 50 years from now when we are mourning the great content providers of the earliest 21st century. BuzzFeed, I remember when they won the Pulitzer for their investigative piece, 19 Struggles Every Person With A Flat Butt Understands.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Page do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Page is going to be able to tell all her patients that she did wonderfully - 3 and 0.
BABYLON: Nice.
BURKHOLDER: Oh, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing Page.
BURKHOLDER: Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
BURKHOLDER: Bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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