Wish I could get more excited about Joe Wilson and Ellen being chosen as AMERICAN IDOL judge.

[Before proceeding with this insignificant post, let's take a moment to remember the people who were victims of unspeakable terrorism in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania eight years ago today.]

Received an e-mail from MoveOn. Haven't opened it, but I'm sure it's asking me to make donations by using Wednesday's outburst from Joe Wilson (acolyte of legendary racist Strom Thurmond aka the Man Who Gave Us Spiro Agnew As Vice President, among other sins) as a fund-and-consciousness-raising tool.

Wilson said what he said. He's foolish--and it's time to move on and not make his bricklike obstructionism an endless media topic which distracts from the real concern post-Wednesday's speech: what President Obama's truly willing to stand for in terms of creating the final health care legislation.

On to a much more trivial subject--Ellen DeGeneres as the "Nice Judge" for next year's AMERICAN IDOL. Leaving the "jump the shark" arguments aside, Fox and 19 Entertainment have essentially signaled that continuing IDOL as a broad-based "television show" is more important than hiring a mainstream celeb who actually has some music biz experience.

For that matter, someone like David Hasselhoff (who works for Simon Cowell on AMERICA'S GOT TALENT)--with a former big-star-in-Germany recording career--would have been a more appropriate choice.

And probably with a lower price tag per season than Ellen.

Paula Abdul, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz now on the unemployment line.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/05/ben-lyons-ben-mankiewicz-_n_252150.html
http://www.popeater.com/2009/08/05/ryan-seacrest-paula-abdul-leaving-american-idol/
http://www.popeater.com/2009/08/05/paula-abdul-replacements/

It's safe to say that Lyons will keep his E! job and Mankiewicz may be seen again on TCM, but Abdul will face the kind of Industry sexism which hates tantrums and dysfunctionality from women, but turns a blind eye when it erupts from members of the male gender.

So I'll predict Paula's immediate future on TV will be solely as a salesperson of her jewelry line on QVC.

But here's a more positive assessment of Paula Abdul's past, present and possible future from Richard Rushfield, who used to be on the AMERICAN IDOL beat for the LOS ANGELES TIMES' Calendar section: http://gawker.com/5330632/five-reasons-paula-abdul-quit-american-idol?skyline=true&s=x

[UPDATE 8/6/09: TMZ post says that negotiations could still be going on:http://www.tmz.com/2009/08/06/paula-leaves-a-i-a-hoax/?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl3link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tmz.com%2F2009%2F08%2F06%2Fpaula-leaves-a-i-a-hoax%2F And perhaps it's time to bring former President and current crisis envoy Bill Clinton in as an arbitrator.]