It was time. The kid needed to go. If he’d been voted in another week, he’d have been reduced to pulling a Britney Spears to get more hair hysteria votes.

And had he made another week, I would have called for electric shock therapy or lobotomies for everyone who dialed his American Idol number. As weeks wore on, so did his ability to push his voice. So, and probably to his credit, he leveraged what he could—his youth, his obsequious smile, his hair, his underdoggedness. And it worked. Reduced one poor little girl to tears one week. But then she was crying before he sang.

I did have to ask myself, though: What is it about that kid that made me want to yank his vocal cords out through his ears?

The sad truth is, he reminded me that being the best at something is sometimes not enough.

Sometimes being the best of the worst and the worst of the best, which is how one might define average, is sufficient. Sometimes having someone around who isn’t looking for a passport out of our comfort zone is comfort enough to make us do what we can to keep that person there. Sometimes to recognize that someone else is achieving what we might not be is too painful. So, we dispense with the successful person, and surround ourselves with mediocrity.

Sanjaya is no dummy. He may define singing as whispering while ten people around you play music, but he’s a marketing genius. He may not be an American Idol, but I have a feeling his money machine will make him an idle American.