A letter to the Editor in yesterday’s Trenton Times:

I don’t know why it surprised me when I heard the statistic about the recent “election” of Taylor Hicks, the latest American Idol. More people participated in that vote than in any presidential election in history. No wonder we are in such a mess. It’s pathetic.

If I remember correctly from the show, there were 63 million votes cast for the American Idol. According to this site, George Bush got 62 million votes in the last election. There were a total of around 120 million votes. What Ryan Seacrest said, (if I remember correctly) was that there were more votes cast (which means for both Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee) than for any President. I’m not going to research all US Presidential elections, but that’s probably true.

So is the letter writer saying that to fix this country, we need to allow 12 year-olds to text message their vote for President 300 times each? Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to help…but hey, I’m game for anything at this point.