O'Reilly: Rallying the Christian "Idol" vote against Adam Lambert?

I don't normally watch FOX News. Politics aside, all those old, rabid white guys, blonde former beauty pageant contestants, and Greta Van Susteren's handsewn mouth combine to give me the heeby jeebies. But yesterday The O'Reilly Factor announced in advance that they were going to air a segment about the "Christian Vote" on American Idol and how that might affect Adam Lambert's chances of winning, so darn it, I sort of had to tune in.

I considered turning the segment into a drinking game — you had to take a shot every time Bill O'Reilly displayed a cropped photo of Lambert kissing another guy — but I didn't want to have a paralyzing hangover this morning so had to abandon that.  

Instead, I decided to take the thing seriously and figure out first: Is there any truth to the assertion that religion plays a big role in who gets crowned the winner; second, was this segment really just a tacit method of mobilizing the Christian vote against Lambert; and third, if getting out the fundie vote was its purpose — just how successful would it be?

Answers to these questions plus the video after the break. 

O'Reilly's guest during this segment was Newsweek entertainment reporter Ramin Setoodeh.  Setoodeh was invited on because he wrote a piece last week which pointed out that many of Idol's former winners (Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks) sort of wore their religion on their sleeve, which led him to conclude that single-issue Christian voters formed a determinative Idol voting block.

Setoodeh is not exactly a hard-hitting journalist. He sort of missed the fact that most Idol winners (Christian or not) were typically better performers/singers than the folks they were competing against.

Also, he may have overstated the assertion that Idol winners typically wear their religion on their sleeve. I mean, as evidence of that for Carrie Underwood he points to "Jesus Take the Wheel," which I took more as an anthem for insanely reckless driving — "Hit a patch of black ice, throw your hands up in the air...." — than a call to Christ.

But regardless of how determinative it is, that there is a Christian voting block is pretty much a no-brainer.  Just as there is a Jewish voting block and a gay voting block and so on.

O'Reilly himself didn't really draw any conclusions about Christian Idol voting patterns during last night's segment. All he did was bring the subject up so he could rerun those cropped photos of Lambert kissing other guys.

And cropping those photos make them seem far more lurid than they actually are. To my admittedly gay eyes, the uncropped versions actually seemed sort of sweet. FOX News did Lambert a disservice by not running those. 

So, was O'Reilly trying to mobilize the Christian vote with last night's segment? Probably. But honestly, he might have been just as successful at motivating people who'd want to counter the Christian vote. I mean, I've never voted for an Idol contestant, but last night's segment made me want to call in for Lambert. (And to be honest, if you remove the whole gay v. Christian debate I'm probably more of a Kris Allen fan.)   

What's your take on this O'Reilly segment?