Media/Culture: More Evidence That I Am Out of Step With the American People

35 million people watched Fox's American Idol program last night, which, according to Lisa de Moraes hysterical retelling in the Washington Post, painfully spread over 2 hours the results of its season-long competition. Coming as no surprise to anybody, apparently, a great big guy named Ruben from Birmingham, Alabama won the contest.

In that final contest, 24 million Americans wasted their time and money voting. Who knows (Fox knows) how many millions of votes were cast over the course of the entire program.

For comparison value, about 75 million Americans bothered to vote in the last general election. Those numbers are too close together, you know. Ah, screw it. Lisa was funny:

So how exactly do you turn five minutes' worth of voting-results information into a two-hour special? With Prime-Time Padding.

You have Sugar Ray Leonard weigh in on the competition. Plus, Michael Chiklis, star of the drama series "The Shield." Why? Who knows.

You toss to Raleigh and Birmingham to talk to the little people in Ruben's and Clay's lives.

You have Kelly Clarkson perform her single "Miss Independent" -- again -- and trot out RCA Records CEO Clive Davis to give a "This Competition Is About Finding the Most Talented Blah Blah Blah" speech and to announce that Clarkson's album has sold 1.3 million copies, which means that only a fraction of the people who watched the first edition of "American Idol" bought it, which you don't mention.

You show a video of Simon and Paula having a romantic dinner, sharing a strawberry, swilling champagne and licking whipped cream off of each other's fingers. Paula says, "I love you, Cuddles" and kisses Simon, but Simon wakes up and it was all just a horrible dream, only it's worse, because he's in bed -- with Randy.

And you take all of the worst songs from the entire competition and make Clay and Ruben sing them, including Clay's version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and Ruben's rendition of "Flying Without Wings."

And all the while, you're parceling out voting results in excruciating state-by-state dribs and drabs, as though daring young viewers to turn it off.

"Clay has won the state of Ohio!"

Who cares?

And the winner in Florida is -- Ruben Studdard!

Yawn.

After 1 hour and 48 minutes, you give the judges the opportunity to say a few final words to the two contestants.

Randy tells them they're both his "dawgs." Brilliant, Randy.

Paula races to pack her 30 seconds with as many cliches as possible, as though she's a contestant in a show called "Cliche Competition": "It's been an amazing journey," "Life is an audition," "Listen to what your mama told you," "No kid ever grew up wanting to be a critic." And so much more.