Part of the fun of American Idol has always been watching Simon Cowell deliver the harsh truth to deluded contestants with zero qualms about hurting feelings or crushing dreams. While Randy struggles to find new ways to string his five-word vocabulary into different comments for each performer, and Paula struggles to keep from drooling, Simon sits at the end of the judge’s table, waiting to deliver one of his patented snarky similes that have the power to make or break someone’s career. Simon is the judge whose opinion both the contestants and the viewers value the most, because he’s the one who tells it like he sees it.

Except so far this season, Simon hasn’t been telling it the way I see it. In fact, there have been moments in recent episodes where I’ve feared that the cranky Brit has been sipping from Paula’s Coke cup.

Like pretty much every time he speaks to Carly Smithson, the tattooed Irish songbird with a penchant for pop rock and power ballads. No other contestant has performed as consistently as Carly this season, or given us a clearer picture of the type of artist she intends to become. But after a fun, pitch-perfect rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s "I Drove All Night," Simon skewered her for not picking a Whitney Houston song, something he’d been advising the other girls against all night! He’d given her similar criticism the prior week, after her performance of Heart’s "Crazy on You." Carly gushed about how she’d wanted to sing this song in front of an audience her entire life, and she nailed every note of it. But Simon wasn’t having it, criticizing the song for not showing off what Carly could do.

It seems to me that the problem isn’t so much about Carly having an identity crisis as it is about her not being the type of singer Simon wants to her to be. Even after comparing her to Kelly Clarkson on "Beatles Night," Simon found a way to dis her later in the evening when he forgot her name! Everyone else in America knows the names of the Idol finalists by now, but Simon can’t be bothered to remember?

Speaking of things everyone in America knows but Simon, has anyone else noticed how limited his musical knowledge really is? All season long, Simon has claimed to have never heard of major hit songs such as Heart’s "Magic Man" (performed on '70s night by Kady Malloy), and the Muddy Waters classic "Baby Please Don’t Go" (Amanda Overmyer’s '60s night selection). He even claimed not to be familiar with the song "More Today Than Yesterday" when Chikezie sang it on the boys’ '60s night, despite the fact that he’d praised Alaina Whitaker’s performance of it the night before! Are we really supposed to trust this man’s opinion on music when his own knowledge of it doesn’t seem to extend beyond the world of Whitney, Mariah and Celine?

Luckily, Simon’s off-the-wall remarks haven’t seemed to have made too much of an impact on this season’s voting. With the exception of last week’s ouster of David Hernandez over country fembot Kristy Lee Cook, the least talented singers have been sent home every week. Which leads me to believe that American Idol fans may be hitting the mute button after each singer’s performance, and doing the judging for themselves.

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