Poor Ayla

American Idol is finally down to its top twelve. For the most part, the audience has kept the best singers. (I question the continuing popularity of Kevin Covais.) Unfortunately, this means they've voted off most of the babes.

They've been knocking off two gals a week to get to this point. Three weeks ago, they pared the babe division down 50% by kicking off Stevie and Becky. At least we still had Ayla, my favorite. But last week she was the final girl not to make it, losing to the rodent-faced Melissa. (I know, I know, it's a singing competition, but my TV gets sound AND pictures.)

The only one left who's still in the babe category is Katharine McPhee, but I'm still feeling bad about Ayla and her tearful exit. Press accounts say she's brushed it off, but it must be tough. And the reason I think it's tough is the same reason she was never going to win, anyway.

I realize she doesn't have the chops, when you come down to it. But even if she did, she would have engendered too much hatred to make it all the way. Her life has been too perfect so far--it looks like she's never failed at anything. She's tall and beautiful, and a good student with a basketball scholarship. She's got a rich, loving family, with a father who's a state senator and a mother who's a TV news broadcaster. And she's only 17. America would have turned on her sooner or later.

There is (was?) a website devoted to her that I checked out. As I predicted, a lot of people wrote in to sneer. Here are a few comments (some apparently patterned on Chuck Norris style jokes):

"Ayla can leap tall buildings in a single bound."
"Ayla once caught a bullet with her teeth."
"This just in!!!.... Ayla found the cure for AIDS."
"Breaking News: Ayla just captured bin Laden."
"It took 7 days to create the heavens and earth???? Ayla could have done it in 3."
"Ayla has donated her heart, lungs and liver 3 times. They just keep growing back."

Here's the comment that best symbolized all the hatred that would have manifested itself, the longer she stayed on:

"TV: $600. Popcorn: $2. Phone: $75. Seeing a rich snob get knocked down off her pedestal knowing daddy can't do squat...................PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Maybe it's best she lost before it got too ugly.