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Spotting his shiny Time 100 lapel pin at the magazine’s gala for their annual list on Thursday, we congratulated newsman Brian Williams on being named one of the world’s most influential people. “I’m an emeritus,” he said. “I’m already yesterday’s news, because I’m a former 100, noted by the black pin as opposed to the red lacquer,” he explained, exposing our ignorance of lapel-pin signifiers. On this year’s list (and present at the party), were notables like Mariah Carey — who performed — Lorne Michaels, John McCain, Judd Apatow, Rupert Murdoch, and Robert Downey Jr. As a former Time 100 member, one must at least get to help choose the new ones, right? “We get absolutely no power with this thing as far as I can tell,” Williams told us. “No rights are transferred to me by dint of being named to the 100. I’ve tried it; it doesn’t get me out of a ticket — even though Ray Kelly is here, and was a member of my class; I still get dinged if I’m too close to a hydrant. And I’ll still be out there hailing a car service tonight at the end of it.” Williams thinks the least they could do is give former 100 inductees voting rights on the Time, Inc. board. “I think a system of superdelegates would be preferable, say, those of us on television,” he said. Wait, people who cover the election for TV think they should be superdelegates? We would have never guessed. —Bennett Marcus
