Railing vaguely against "lobbyists" is about as dumb as claiming that we need to get rid of "interest groups" or "campaigns". Petitioning the government for a redress of greviances is a constitutional right. Some people who are lobbyists are in it as volunteers (not contract lobbyists), don't make loads of money doing it, and fight for very good causes. The massive corruption of the K Street project is not an evil rooted in the whole concept of lobbying in general. The worst examples of lobbying in DC are merely messengers and agents for the dominant economic and social powers that be in this country. Getting rid of the messenger (or fruitlessly attempting to do so) does nothing to change the actual inequality of power.

I don't always agree 100% with his positions but he never fails to point out the lunacy.

Maher needs to stop inviting Robin Williams on his show. He kills the whole show with his crazy impersonations and rambling and he talks over everything.... hey Robin, maybe some of us want to hear what Sen. Chafee has to say and want Bill to actually do New Rules without interruption.

Williams can be a smart guy when he wants to be, but those bursts of brilliance are few and far between and all we usually get is elementary school silliness. I was so frustrated at his behavior and I imagine I was not alone.

Uh, dende blogger? Look up "K Street Project" and get back to us.

Has someone told Robin Williams he isn't as funny as he thinks he is? He's more like the five year old kid who constantly needs someone to pay attention to him.

So that wasn't an echo I heard when I screamed, Williams shut the fuck up. I would have liked to hear more of what Richard Clarke had to say. Robin doesn't do well if he's not the center of attention. He's the one the third grade teacher was talking about when she wrote, doesn't work well in groups.

Norm, you definitely weren't alone.

Check out this discussion thread at IMDB.

Hopefully people will contact HBO or Maher's people and let them know. Williams not only hogged the spotlight in a week with many key stories to debate, he was rude to Maher as a host and caused the show to run late. I guess Maher is friends with him, but this is ridiculous.

I laughed the entire time, but even when he was being quiet, he was doing SOMETHING. Call it poor impulse control, or ADHD, or whatever, Robin needed to turn off the funny, and just be the intelligent person he is. I mean, he knows how many languages, he has so much oscure knowledge in his brain just to be able to do his brand of stand-up, couldn't he, just for one night, stop the funny and show that he knows his stuff so we can take him seriously? There were short portions of the show where he did slow down, and I actually got a glimpse of some facts I hadn't thought of before, like the 100,000+ Iraqi casualties and how that would translate to our side. Insightful, but too short. Anyway, end rant. I'm done here.

I know I said end rant, but I think I've found the answer to Robin Williams' dominance of panels and interviews. Give him his own show. Teach him how to interview, give him a weekly 1 hour show in late night and tell him he has to cover certain areas. He's not stupid, and I truly believe he needs to get his energy out in a weekly monologue/brain dump. If he did that kind of show, he could probably slow down enough to have an intelligent panel discussion. Enough from me. End rant.

I checked out the comments to see if anybody else spoke aout Robin Williams interuptions. I agreew ith the above, I think he is very smart but he needs to adapt to his change of surroundings better and realize when to intterupt, when to make a joke, when to not, and when his jokes just aren't funny. But nonetheless I do like him.

Redundancy in the hopes that Robin Williams will catch a clue: Robin, we all love you--you're a brilliantly perceptive treasure! But over half the time you make us cringe. Please, learn to shut the fuck up when you don't have anything to say--and let others be brilliant.

I love Williams but his compulsive need to be the center of attention is often out of place.

woN'T yOu

What if we got rid of the lobbyist? What then? Government wouldn't be able to redress the grievences of the people?

Is the only way to have your grievences redressed is through an organization, like PIRG, which may not be a corporation but constantly trying to get more and more money nonetheless.

As I understand it--been a while since my political science class--lobbying started when interest groups hung around, in the lobby, waiting to court congressmen in the early part of 1830. So lobbying wasn't the method our forefathers intended to address grievences. I'm not one of those purist who says we should do everything as the powdered-wig club intended, but shouldn't we consider doing away with the currents system in which an organization's success is based solely on how much money it can throw at a congressman?

I have always liked Robin Williams but please stop him from all the not-so- funny endless interuptions. It brings the show down.