Fiddling While Rome Burns

Well, Sanjaya Malakar got voted off American Idle this week, but not before the 17-year old Seattle boy with the big hair and small voice had become a household name. At one point during the Sanjayamania that swept the country for a while and kept people's attention diverted from things that matter, Hillary Clinton was even asked to comment on him in a press conference. She likened his campaign to her own. Even the young man was startled, and expressed to an interviewer his astonishment that he had become conflated with the race for president, only not exactly in those words. One is tempted to refer to him as an instant star, but there's really no such thing. Stardom takes long preparation, hard work, accomplishment. Gosh, it took him several weeks of enduring national villification and derision to reach the lofty heights. Now, with job offers pouring in, he must make some hard choices about his future. There will be celebrity golf cart races, mall openings, telethon apearances. Heady stuff. We wish him well, and we pray for America.