American Idol to America: We may be raising millions for charity, but we're still mean

Wow, I'm stunned. No, not by "the most shocking result ever" on American Idol, or whatever Ryan called it. No, I'm stunned that the show would decide that it was, as Ryan said, wrong to kick off somebody during a charity event--and yet still emotionally abuse Jordin by making her think she had been voted for a few seconds until telling her the good news that everyone was safe. They may have raised lots of money for charity tonight, but the American Idol producers are still evil hypocrites.

Oh, and another thing while I'm ranting: How exactly is this "the most shocking result" in Idol history? First of all, it's not a result--it's a decision made by the producers. It's not even unprecedented--when Corey Clark was booted from the show for the discovery of his arrest record in season two, they did the exact same thing. Even if Jordin or Melinda had been voted off, it still wouldn't have been the most shocking elimination in Idol history anyway--that title still remains with Tamyra in season one, but whatever.

By the way, I was amused that they spread the reveal of the results by doing one at a time throughout the evening and asking them to stand up before dramatically saying "You're safe." Do they really think the audience is dumb enough to think that when they asked Melinda to stand up 15 minutes into the show that she was going to be voted off? Of course not....This stuff just makes me too annoyed and angry--let me just get back to the show and provide some quick stream of consciousness thoughts on a broadcast that was way too long...

So Fox was contributing 10 cents for each vote up to 50 million and they got 70 million votes. But Ryan still announced that Fox was donating 5 million. You mean to tell me that Rupert Murdoch couldn't chip in the extra 2 mil? That's kind of funny--after all, Fox makes at least 2 million every time this show has a commercial break.

Earth, Wind and Fire 30 years after their prime, Il Divo, Rascal Flatts--this wasn't quite the assemblage of talent that we had been promised, was it? Yeah, I know some people like Rascal Flatts, but their covers of two Eagles songs on the Grammys this year was so bad they shouldn't be allowed to perform on television anymore. On the bright side, Josh Groban and the African Children's Choir was good, it was great to see Kelly Clarkson sing on Idol again, and Annie Lennox was great as always.

As for Celine Dion and Elvis, technically and visually it was really cool. But it was just so wrong.

Was Chris Richardson really wearing a hoodie under his white suit tonight? He should have been kicked off just for that.

There was a decent amount of stars in the Staying Alive video, I guess--but the guy who stood out the most was David Schwimmer. Has he been OK? Where's he been?

Glad that Ryan finally at some point tonight pointed out the actual country he and Simon were in during one of their tapes--Kenya.

Paula, it's a two-hour charity telethon and you've got to wear a dress which showed us almost all of your breasts. Interesting choice.

Loved that the Simpsons clip made a Brian Dunkleman joke, and was generally pretty amusing. The Ben Stiller clips--I'm glad they're over.

Finally, what was the deal with that Bono walk-on? What was the point of that? And had he already talked to them and then walked back to stand at the door before returning to the group in the clip? Because they sure didn't seem all that surprised or excited to see him. That was very strange--but this is American Idol so I guess it comes with the territory. Fingerhut to bed.