Not a fan of the gays, America?

What happened last night, compatriots? I'm not talking about the Sox winning or the exciting last minute of the Cavs game. Kris Allen winning American Idol: bwah?!

I'm not saying he isn't talented or a good singer. As a musician, he's probably better than Adam Lambert, the to-this-point odds on favorite. But he was so...whitebread college town bar singer. Adam knows he's a star.

Is it the boy-kissing, America? Certainly Adam would've been the most "fabulous" idol, and he makes no bones about that (!). His appearance is over-the-top fancy emo, and that voice! Bordering at times on the absurd, it always invigorates his song choices and shows why all season he'd been considered in a class on his own. It soars and swoons, that voice.

But it also sounded, some weeks, like he should've been in drag, aping Liza. Can I chalk that up as the reason for his loss?

I'm not convinced Tuesday's performance did it for Kris and did in Adam. Like Carrie Underwood, Adam had been nigh untouchable in the elimination rounds. He was a shoe-in, even over Danny Gokey, he of the sob story and the early fav. Then Kris sang Heartless, astoundingly well, and it seemed - to me - that people could now justify their votes for him. Favs dropped in his path, and he clinched it with his more marketable voice.

So that means people were waiting for greatness to justify why this guy the Red Eye said would go out before the top 10 had stuck around while better, or more favored, singers left. With Gokey gone, his fans - more similar to Kris' than Adam's - latched on to the only "traditional" thing left.

Alas, alack.

Though I may be called paranoid, I'm not convinced this underdog story occurred naturally. I've said it before, let's repeat the chorus: it's fixed. If election after election Chicago's Democratic Machine can massage the votes enough to get their people in, then of course we can legitimately call shenanigans on American Idol. The producers got a great story arc out of this - the dark-horse-who's-apple-pie-America - and the means to drum up post-show dollar votes for Adam (feel he was cheated? Buy his album and show ol Slidejaw Allen who really deserved the dandy crown).

It is a show, and therefore not important in the grand scheme, but I would've really liked an Adam victory. He rocked it with KISS and Queen (well...Brian May and Roger Taylor). That showmanship, that voice and atypical sense of personal acceptance made him the clear winner. A shame it wasn't made official.

-Hooper