I don’t think the CIA killed JFK. I don’t think that the Pentagon flew a jet into the Pentagon on 9-11. And, I don’t bother with the Catholic Church keeping ancient secrets stuff.

I do, however, think that there is something very fishy regarding the American Idol results on Wednesday.

No, nothing about Chris “The Rocker” being robbed (enough provocation when NY Times columnist John Tierney joins in the mourning). And nothing that would actually cause a different set of finalists. But it does have to do with the results.

Last week, when there were four contestants, the results of the voting looked kind of like this:

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See, there was a HUGE lead for Taylor. So how does it happen that the following week, there is a virtual 3-way tie for votes, when Taylor had his best night ever?

Everyone knows that when the SuperBowl is a romp, folks don’t watch. So if it looks like Taylor is a shoe-in, where is the suspense? Fox needs a horserace in order to keep up it’s ratings.

I bet that it was more like Taylor–the clear leader–had 60-70% of the votes and it was close between Katherine and Elliot.* Many fewer people would watch if they knew that Taylor’s lead was insurmountable. It’s not reality-TV. It’s business.

* Full disclosure, Elliot was my fav, I won’t say that he really won, though.