Idol ratings drop -- Did they shoot themselves in the foot in shooting down Haley?

[buzzenator]

If the judges criticize the contestant's song choices, to me they are just trying to unduly influence or bias the viewing audience against a particular contestant, as many people just automatically discount or even dismiss the performances instead of judging them on their merits, and the merits of each performance should be the sole criteria for judging the contestants. Let the audience decide if it is the wrong song choice without the influence of the judges.

I agree that it is pointless of the judges to be critiquing song choices. First of all, it will never be consistently invoked by the judges as we saw with Haley vs the Country Kids & Durbin. How ridiculous was the criticism of song choice for Haley singing 'You and I', which the hired mentor of Idol, Jimmy Iovine, had pushed for Haley to do. Not only did he initiate the choice but lauds her for "just lacing it" in front of the audience. So now we are lead to believe by JLo & Randy that this was a huge mistake by Haley, even though we all heard and the audience all heard her do an excellent cover of what became a huge hit for Gaga. So much for poor song choice, which time has revealed how inept JLo's & Randy's comments were, but the damage was done unfairly to Haley.

Secondly, this criticism is really only a smoke screen, initiated by the producers (Uncle Nigel), for directing the audience to think there is something wrong with the contestant (as John stated), as if they don't know what type of artist they are. In Haley's case this was used time and again as a means to discredit her in the eyes of some audience members...in an attempt to direct more votes towards the outcome TPTB desired.

Thirdly, how can a contestant be held responsible for song choices that are approved by Idol for the current weeks' theme? If the song should not be performed, Idol should not approve it in advance and then allow the judges to back door the contestant. The prime example of this was, according to Nigel, 'Earth Song' by Haley. She picks an inspirational song which has to be approved by Idol and performs the song only to be criticized by the judges for song choice. Nigel says after the fact that the judges didn't think anyone should do a Michael Jackson song. How is it that no one could get that message to Haley when she picked the song or before the dress rehearsal viewed by the judges or before the live performance? It was this unfair criticism that finally caused Haley to stand-up to Randy's tirade with "I felt it" and "I didn't know I should have changed that" (adding runs at the end?). Randy really lost it that night and was exposed like never before for being the "poser" that he really is, as he just made it up on the fly...like during Haley's audition, when he said "I think you've really improved from last year".