i can't believe i'm feeling sorry for simon cowell

But I am. This Idol judge is pretty caustic when it comes to performances and he cops a lot of flack for his comments, but this week he's in a real pickle for something he never intended to do.

In case you haven't heard about the incident, basically the camera cut-away seems to show him rolling his eyes at a contestant's condolences to the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. However, it wasn't the condolences he was rolling his eyes at. He had just made a comment about the contestant singing the song very nasally. Rather than accept the criticism and move on, the contestant explained that he'd been singing nasally on purpose because he thought it was the right sound for the song.

Apparently he turned to Paula Abdul and said something along the lines of, 'right, he sang nasally on purpose' and then rolled his eyes. Because he was mumbling to her, he didn't even realise what else the guy had said. The timing was truly awful and I'm stunned that they left it in the final edit of the show. It's not like that show goes out live. Some people have said he's just making excuses, but I don't have any trouble believing it. I certainly would have been rolling my eyes at anyone saying they were intentionally making their performance sound nasal, and Simon tuning out on what the guy was saying at that point sounds just like him.

They say the camera never lies, but actually I think the camera's pretty good at it.