This week, as Washington continues its sleight of hand smokescreen to convince us that the old conundrum, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is not a joke, the mindless American Idol pseudo-entertainment is shifted forward one day, having been pre-empted by an Obama double-barreled Teleprompter extravaganza. As this Mouse watches a corrupt Congress (and he means both sides of the proverbial aisle) snatch up all his cheese, past, present, and future, steamrolling legislation that even our esteemed president seems powerless to modify, let alone thwart, because the big cheese, Nancy Pelosi, has his walnuts firmly in her leonine, socialist grasp with the the omnipresent tacit threat to squeeze them, a veritable Sword of Damocles, as it were, Mighty Mus must mollify his anxiety with the inane drivel of good old Idol.

Hey, this Mouse just realized something. We have three, not two, nights of mindless entertainment this week! Yea, verily, we have amateur night in Washington on Tuesday night, as our earn-while-you-learn president takes the podium and flawlessly delivers a smooth rendition of that old song, Oy, Have I Got a Bridge to Sell Ya! Wednesday and Thursday, we have the ascendent descendents of the contestants on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour competing to see who can be the next overhyped, mildly talented entertainer to grace the airwaves and our iPods. It’s all consistently bad entertainment, and this Mouse refuses to let it frustrate him. Obama and the other 10 contestants trying to either win or lose America’s hearts, if not its money, are there for our enjoyment.

Obama and congress are performing a magician’s act with your money, folks, and you don’t even know that it’s happening. Now you see it, now you don’t. Behind that curtain is my predecessor; it’s all his fault. ??? ????

Moving right along, a recap of last week’s result show festivities is in order. It was essentially country boredom time as a few country artists hawked their latest CDs, but who the hell cares about that. The results were what we had to wait for through all that, which of course was like Guantánamo torture (by which this Mouse means merely sending little Ali to bed without his cookies and milk, which is only defined as torture by the ACLU and Pelosi, if she’s looking to create a smokescreen for her own heavy-handed malfeasance). Oh, wait. Idol. [Yes, focus, Mouse. You’re so easily distracted by your quasi-political reveries! Have a glass of MUScatel and settle down! –Ed.]

OK, so throughout the results show, we had the usual cliff-hangers, with every contestant being made to stand up and shit in his or her pants as they are dragged through every mistake they made and the further torture (there’s that word again!) of being subjected to another round of comments by the so-called judges. Ryan Seacrest and the producers’ favored torture technique this season is standing up two contestants and, after suitably busting their balls (or ovaries, for you politically correct, anachronistic Women’s Libbers) by reciting the previous day’s ill-tempered assessments by Simon Cowell, asking the judges to state which one of the two should stay and which one should go. Of course, this is filler material, as “America” has already voted at that point and the results are already known to everybody but the (hopefully) Ford-buying, Coke-swilling  audience.

The “Judges’ Save” is a new concept this year, and it would come into play for the first time during this results show. Recall that the judges can save one contestant who is voted off the show by the popular vote. They can only do this once per season; after they save someone, they’ve shot their proverbial wad. Furthermore, they have to be unanimous in their ass-saving decision.

Poor little Alexis, who suffers from Tiny T & A Syndrome (TTAS), enough of a handicap in Hollywood already, was on the bubble last Wednesday night, as America voted and left her with the short straw. However, as she stood with Michael Sarver for the pre-result ball-breaking ceremony, the judges said that they had conferred and they had agreed to give one of the two an opportunity for a save if that particular individual was voted off by America. As it turned out, that meant Alexis, and she was indeed the one voted off. Seacrest told her to sing her ass off for the tribunal, who would then decide her ultimate and indelible fate.

The net-net: we’re short one blonde. Or short one short blonde. Whatever. No huge loss.

This week, the remaining ten contestants get to tackle Berry Gordy’s Motown sound. ???? ?????? Accordingly, one would expect the schvartzes to do well (this Mouse speaks Yiddish almost as well as Jackie Mason). However, there is only one of them, Lil Rounds. Do not fear, because Danny Gokey can do white boy soul pretty damn well. What the hell will Adam Lambert do?  That’s always the big question from week to week, and that is why he’s going to win this damn thing hands down! ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????? He’s a showman, versatile and full of surprises. Not one of the other nine contestants can hold a candle to him. It should be pretty funny, though, to see Michael Sarver sing R&B, which in his vocabulary probably stands for “rigs and beer.”

And, then, there’s the delightfully endowed, tattooed Megan Joy, who brings great joy to my tiny mouse loins. A few more weeks for this blonde, please. This Mouse deserves it, after having to put up with the crappy magician’s act in Washington.