Sanjaya Malakar sings ‘Cheek to Cheek’ from Tony Bennett week on American Idol, and seems to be angling for the Corey Clark special. Duke and Ella are hard to top — can we get a theme from this century, please? Seacrest slips him a shiv: ‘You do a great job staying under the radar, Sanjaya.’

The NYT digs for deeper meaning in a bubble gum pop event they feel pressured to cover:

“Idol,” now in its sixth season, has its selection process backward. In this country, people can vote for whomever they want — even Al Gore in 2000 — but the last word is left to the Electoral College and even the justices of the Supreme Court… It cannot be a coincidence that television voting rights arose so soon after the 2000 election left slightly more than half the voting population feeling cheated…

When an Iraqi woman won the Middle Eastern version of the contest, “Star Academy,” her victory briefly united Iraqis, regardless of sect or creed. It’s sobering to learn that after all the Bush administration’s efforts to export American-style democracy to Iraq, the one element of American culture that Iraqis took to heart was a television reality show…

Outsiders always have an inside edge. Mr. Malakar, who is of Indian descent and has an atavistic teen-idol sweetness, is the ultimate underdog: he can’t sing or dance very well. [Link]

Someone else makes the Dubya-Sanjaya connection:

Malakar has spawned a new pop culture term: Sanjaya Syndrome. But let’s face it: Long before he came along, there was no shortage of embarrassing success stories… George W. Bush, president of the United States: Not much needs to be said here. But how awesome to think that even Sanjayas can grow up to be president. [Link]

A hometown paper reminisces:

“He always loved doing hair,” says Pat Wright, director of Total Experience Gospel Choir, which Malakar joined as a high-school freshman. “On our tour last summer [when the choir visited post-Katrina New Orleans], he’d do all the girls’ hair every day. He had all the stuff — the sprays and things — and he could do colors, cuts and styles…”

Shorecrest senior Michael Oldham, 18, used to sing with Malakar at the Sunshine Café, an espresso joint down the block from the high school… “He always sounded like a young Stevie Wonder to me — only with a deeper voice. He’s actually really good…”

Malakar’s aunt, Christi Recchi, and her two children watch and vote for him each week, too. Malakar lived with them during his freshman year, after his mom moved to Federal Way and he wanted to stay near his friends from the Waldorf School in Northeast Seattle. Malakar later transferred to school in Federal Way but quit and earned his GED. [Link]

Reviews of the jazz standard:

Decked out in a white suit and matching shoes, Sanjaya offered Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek,” and shuffled all over the stage like, well, not Fred Astaire, exactly, but not Fred Flintstone either. It wasn’t vocally terrible and, overall, he was kind of charming… [Link]

… the “Sanjaya Is My Papaya” signs… does it matter what anyone besides Sanjaya wears or does? When even Tony Bennett is admitting that he’s a Fanjaya, it may be time to accept the fact that it’s Sanjaya’s universe and we’re all just orbiting in it. [Link]

Panic seized “American Idol” last night as judges searched desperately for things to say about Sanjaya Malakar’s performance that would not mobilize little girls and older women to get out the vote to save him…

“I don’t know that I can even comment on the vocals anymore,” judge Randy Jackson offered after Sanjaya mumbled his way through Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek” while gliding around stage like a waiter moving carefully through a crowd, stopping briefly to flirt and dance with Paula Abdul.

“You’ve turned into a great entertainer,” Randy said, paying tribute to Sanjaya’s ever-changing hair and outfits. This week, his hair brilliantined to shine brighter than his gleaming teeth, Sanjaya is dressed like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” — which is odd, given that it’s Tony Bennett week on “Idol…” [Link]

Sporting a slicked back hair-do, Malakar did a relatively good version of Fred Astaire’s “Cheek to Cheek” including hamming it up for the cameras by crooning to his fan-base, a twelve-year old girl in the crowd, and twirling AI judge Paula Abdul around like some-kind of sassy Desi-Astaire.

In fact, Sanjaya would have had to have come out on stage and punched a cripple, strangled a box of playful kittens and thrown rotten eggs at confused Alzheimer patients in order to get himself voted off this week. [Link]

The judges have officially given up on even trying to critique the unstoppable hair-genie that is Sanjaya Malakar… This week he sported a slicked-back ‘do, which, when paired with his ingratiating, lametastic “dance” with Paula, reminded one of MC Skat Cat from Paula’s “Opposites Attract” video way back when. [Link]

Vote for the Worst posts its usual literate fan mail:

I will personly call or write the presedent Gerorge w. bush about your site if you dont take it down right away. I also have a relitive who is a lawyer who i will call and tell him to sue you, as what you are doing is unamerican and illegal. [Link]

More Larry King on Sanjaya:

Related posts: America, Idle, The Sanjaya show (updated), A star is born (updated again), They voted for the worst, Wishy-washy idol, The Curious Incident of the Malakars in the Night-Time