{"id":1444,"date":"2006-05-25T09:11:11","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T16:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2006\/05\/the_more_better_american_idol\/"},"modified":"2006-05-25T09:11:11","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T16:11:11","slug":"the_more_better_american_idol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2006\/05\/the_more_better_american_idol.html","title":{"rendered":"THE MORE BETTER AMERICAN IDOL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Unlike 30 million others, I didn’t watch last night’s “American Idol” finale. I’m not proud of that. It’s just a fact. I realize this calls my patriotism into question. So I offer the Bullshitter-in-Chief<\/strong><\/font><\/a> as the true pop-cult idol of our time. Here’s his portrait, right, a study in heroic banality concocted by editorial cartoonist Bill Mitchell<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, who ‘toons for CNN.com<\/strong><\/font><\/a>.
\nThe truth is I haven’t watched “American Idol” in three years, ever since leaving MSNBC.com, where I had to write about it as part of my job. But I did read about it this morning in Alessandra Stanley’s commentary<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, which compensates for all the years I missed. I get the impression she didn’t like the finale (“a supersize letdown”) or the show in general (“a monster-size celebration of mediocrity that, astonishingly<\/i>, has not lost its hold on viewers even in its fifth season”). Stanley is very smart. That’s why I’ve added the italics. I’m astonished that she’s astonished. I don’t think she really is. And here’s the Lisa de Moraes blow-by-blow<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, which says pretty much what Stanley says but in too many words.
\nJust for the record:<\/strong> Mitchell gave me the Bullshitter’s portrait to illustrate “creative plagiarism,” per Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, by way of the Mustill\/Muniz flap<\/strong><\/font><\/a>. My Q to Mitchell: “So tell me, did Muniz rip off Mustill?” His A to me: “Does the Pope dress like a silly little girl?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bullshitter-in-Chief as the true pop-cult idol of our time. Here’s his portrait, right, a study in heroic banality concocted by editorial cartoonist ‘toons for CNN.com. The truth is I haven’t watched “American Idol” in three years, ever since leaving MSNBC.com, where I had to write about it as part of my job. But I did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-ni","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}