Idol Chatter: Nanny out!

Farewell Brooke! You may have come increasingly unhinged during the past few "American Idol" weeks, but I'd totally let you babysit any future Jaded Insider kidlets to give them the, errr, opposite perspective on life.

And wasn't it nice how Ryan reaffirmed that Paula is still part of the AI family, despite totally upending what small connection the show has to being legitimate the night before? Funny, when he referred to the "questions" hounding Paula all day Wednesday, I thought he was going to address the issues I was reading about on blogs all day: Was she drunk? Was she confused? Are all the comments canned tips from producers, anyway? But no, Ryan answers the question not asked: Does AI still love Paula? Nice dodge there, AI, by answering a question no one asked. I think that's on page 236 of Karl Rove's playbook. Sweet. (For the record, Paula went on Ryan's radio show to say that she was, well, confused and watched Jason Castro's second performance in rehersals.)

I must say, however, that while the call-in portion is generally loathsome, it was a nice change to see Simon embarrassed when his  childhood  sweetheart called in to needle him about snogging her in  his parent's garden decades (yeah, I said  decades, Simon) ago. Even better  was his snappy comeback: "Are you still cute?"

Funny how the entertaining aspects of AI this year have less and less to do with the singers.