Simon Gets Serious: Sanjaya's Not Funny Anymore

At long last, the gloves are off. A bandanna-clad Sanjaya Malakar's Tuesday-night rendition of Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About" gave his biggest critic lots to talk about. After Randy likened it to bad karaoke and Paula, I dunno, tittered, Simon declared the performance "utterly horrendous" and as awful as anything they'd heard during the audition rounds. At that point, Ryan (of course) stepped in to play peacemaker, but Cowell wouldn't be squelched. Waving off Seacrest, the brassy Brit said to Sanjaya — OK, to America, really — "I know this has been funny for a while, but because of the fact that we're supposed to be finding an American Idol, it was hideous. A ridiculous choice of song."Let's hope America got the message, stopped obliging sites like "FightTheEstablishment.com" and "BeAWackyVoteTamperingRebel.com," and got the job done this time.