Lessons from 'Idol' worship

what does American Idol say about America?

• This is the marketplace, where tears and major makeovers and celebrity all sell. Along with glitz and many, many forgettable performances, American Idol drips with product placement and self-congratulation.

It's a bonus when talent shows up.

• It takes a hard-edged realist to make show business - any business - work. Take away Simon Cowell, and American Idol would wither.

Cowell is not always right, but he's always certain. He's not always persuasive, but usually he is.

And he can be brutally frank, an entertainment bonus in a country that relishes alpha males. In real life, most people won't tell you the truth about yourself as they see it (thank goodness). With rare exceptions, that is Cowell's game.

• The millions who vote - and vote and vote - in this television talent show can be just as wrong as the millions who choose presidents. This week's finale was not a competition but a coronation of 17-year-old Jordin Sparks.

Sparks's real competition, Melinda Doolittle, had lost out the week before despite a superior performance. Possibly voters did not like her looks, or maybe they saw vulnerability and humility where they would have preferred chutzpah.

Whatever the reason, once she was gone, so was the suspense.

Poor Blake Lewis. His chances were as thin as his voice.

Of course, "poor" is the wrong adjective for any of the finalists. If they were ever poor, they're poor no more. While we sing arias in the shower, they're in the promised land making hay, rain or shine.