I'm not saying Leno is any better just that Letterman falls flat every night. I agree, Craig Ferguson is brilliant. I'd much rather he be in Letterman's time slot.

I finally watched Maher and I was pretty disappointed. His stand up has always been shotty but tonight's was awful. I expected more from Olbermann too. Louis CK was funny and the highlight for me. Though I agree with Maher, when Louis told him that he's not like his character on the show... part of me died inside. The bubble bit was a wasted opportunity. It just seemed like a good idea but executed poorly.

I agree with everything you said, I did't even finish watching Maher, it was so bad.

Seth MacFarlane is on the show tonight. I hope he's part of the regular panel and not the guest who comes on with about 15 minutes of show left.

I've seen him on the show before as a panelist. He comes across as a smug idiot. Still he's better than Michael Moore who was inexplicably dull and completely useless last Friday.

Are you sure you didn't just doze off during Moore's rants? I thought he was good

No Republicans on the show. Finally, loved it.

Agreed. I grow weary of Maher trying to include apologists for bigotry and oligarchy. But he also needs to get smarter liberals on the panel. Seth McFarlane is much less informed than I thought he was. Bring back Ben Affleck!

Tonight's guests include Rachel Maddow. I don't know who else is on the panel, but these are the other appearances: Lisa Jackson, Toure, Thomas Friedman, Joshua Green.

The last 2 shows have been really good. Last week had Penn Jillette, who is always amusing, and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, John Fund, and Thom Hartmann. That was a good group, especially Michelle's knockers.

2 weeks ago had P.J. O'Rourke on there. blah. His schtick gets old, and it was good to see Alan Grayson tear him a new one.

P.J. O'Rourke would be interesting if he was half as witty as he thinks he is.

I've fallen way behind on this; need to start catching up with HBO on-demand.

Was he EVER witty? He's one of Bill's most obnoxious frequent guests (and several of the others are liberals) and I've never enjoyed him and he never adds anything to the debate.

He's not good at defending his own positions and his attempts at being funny are painful to listen to. It's like he only comes there "in character" and he doesn't realize the character sucks. I am a liberal, but I don't mind a conservative who is willing to do this show just as long as I believe that THEY believe in what they're saying.

With PJ, I'm never even convinced he's doing anything but taking the other side for fun, not because he really believes in many of the positions he defends and eventually quits defending the moment someone confronts him, so he ends up making those smug jokes that only he and Bill (who just seems to have a crush on him) enjoy.

I've been a huge fan of the show for several years and frequently watch the same episodes more than once. This season has been very strong, imo. Particularly the last few weeks. Last night's episode was very good. It was an all liberal panel.

O'Rourke has been a frequent guest. I believe he and Maher are old buddies. Lately O'Rourke's appearances have been very stale. He wasn't too bad a few years back, but the last couple of times I've seen him on there, he's been lousy.

Of course, he's certainly not the worst guest I've seen on the show. That title clearly goes to Eddie Griffin.

Should be an interesting show tonight. Grover Norquist will be appearing. Ron Christie, Michelle Goldberg, crazy Cornell West, and Michael Ware are also scheduled.

now brother mr cinema, i take offence to that

LOL but it turns out he was right.

In a good way.

That Larry King model was ridiculously hot and she's probably over at Bill's house now without the suspenders.

On the Overtime segment ( http://www.hbo.com/#/real-time-with-...-overtime.html ), Bill Maher asked the Neo-Cons about why there's virtually no Republican comedians and then chalked it up to the lack of dumb stuff to make fun on the other side from them.

The Neo-Cons then dragged out the Obama quote about "57 states" from over 3 years ago when he misspoke and meant to say 47 states. I think it's amusing that they basically just back up Maher's point that there's no material on the other side from them given that all they have is this single quote from 2008 that they desperately still cling to after all this time.

You don't honestly believe that do you? Ever hear of Joe Biden.

Anyway, I hate this show and it should be obvious why. However, why doesn't Maher just make it a liberal talk show and have 100% liberal guests every week? The whole idea of getting a couple liberals and a couple conservatives together and have them scream at each other is so tired. It's not just this show either. Many other shows, including conservative shows, do the same thing.

Joe Biden would a good target, but even he gets more jokes about him on The Daily Show than anywhere else. But finding anything else on Obama is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Real Time works best when it's an all liberal panel or when the conservatives on it aren't all talking-point parrots. This panel was a good one until the Neo-Con Ron Christie showed up and started saying right-wing spin criticizing Obama's Libya strategy for putting Americans in harms way, but then saying that how Bush handled Iraq shouldn't be criticized for the exact same reason. (This clearly partisan view is especially absurd given that no Americans died supporting the operations in Libyan, unlike Iraq.)

How drunk was that Australian dude?

My God, yes she was. So was the Quadaffi model.

The Hawking one was gorgeous too, but that one was just so wrong, even though she pulled it off beautifully.

Norquist just annoyed me from the moment he sat down. I can't believe all the crap he kept spouting.

The show was moving along nicely and then I saw 2 more things that made it even better. Damn, she was smokin' hot. Since this was HBO, I was hoping she'd pull the suspenders for a second or two.

I thought the same thing. Half the time, he kept sitting up in his chair like he was about to let one rip, then he remembered a professor from Princeton was sitting beside him.

... and was trying to decide whether he should kiss him or not.