And the Pulitzer goes to ...

The new movie "American Dreamz" is a spoof of an "American Idol"-type reality TV competition that apparently garners more votes for its contestants than the presidential election. Far-fetched? Well considering the A-1, top of the fold treatment for the "news" story that people can't get through trying to vote for Richmonder Elliott Yamin on "Idol", I'll let you decide if that is so crazy a notion. The T-D put seven staff members on dialing duty for a half-hour to compare percentages of successful votes. Their fearless investigation proved that there is a conspiracy, friends! Elliott's votes went through only 2.5 percent of the time! The lowest percentage next to that was Katharine McPhee's with 23 percent.

It couldn't possibly be that because everyone is calling from Richmond that the phone lines would get jammed here? Not bloody likely! say local phone company muckety-mucks. (See, the T-D really did work this story hard.) But how about calling the hometowns of the other contestants and seeing if they are reporting problems for their hometown favorites, hmmmmm?

Just for the record, I have voted for Elliott at least a dozen times each last week and this week and had no problem whatsoever getting through. I have AT&T long distance. Could the difference in long-distance carriers be the issue? Perhaps that's part two of the investigation when the T-D really blows the lid off the "people with enough time on their hands to dial a phone for two straight hours and still have time left over to complain about it" story.

Meanwhile, Elliott looked and sounded great the other night. But that Katharine McPhee's going to be tough to beat. Go, Elliott!