Lady Gaga Night on 'American Idol' Top 4--Haley Gets a Raw Deal

There's a good possibility that Haley Reinhart will go home on American Idol Top 4 results night, and it will be one of AI's biggest crimes if that happens. While the Lady Reinhart has not always been perfect, she's had about four performances now ("Bennie and the Jets," "Rolling in the Deep," "The House of the Rising Sun," and last night's "I (Who Have Nothing)," that have blown the competition out of the water. Lady Gaga was beside herself with glee last night during Haley's mentoring session, announcing, "You're going to kick so much ass!"

Haley has also gotten backing from other musicians, including American Idol alums like Adam Lambert, who last night tweeted: "Haley gets criticized cuz she's the best and SO not cookie cutter. She was Fiesty 2n b/c she's a strong, smart woman. my fav kind o woman," and David Cook, who tweeted "Catching up on tonight's idol. These judges are getting somewhat infuriating."

It's probably not best for Haley to win, since the powers-that-be would probably give her the Kris Allen treatment and punish her with artistic and promotional apathy for not being their favorite. She does, however, deserve to be in the American Idol Top 3. She's grown the most in this competition, with probably James as a close second in that department--though he's faltered a bit of late.

As unfair as the judges have been to Haley, they've also been unfair to the other contestants, who are constantly told that they're awesome and never given any valid criticism. So they keep making the same mistakes, only to be occasionally given some revisionist critique from the judges about how they "didn't do so well last week"--which only serves to confuse them further. All four contestants in this race are talented, and they've all been ill-served by the Idol machine, which is unfortunate. It would have been nice to see these kids really go head to head, at their best, without all the ridiculous producer manipulation and sabotaging of Haley (and honestly, I think they sabotaged Jacob near the end of his run as well--and I wasn't even a fan of his.)

You can read my full write-up of last night's performance night at Yahoo! TV: Lady Gaga on "American Idol" Top 4: Gaga Scares Scotty, Lauren Stands Up for Haley.

You can also find all of my American Idol recap links here on the TV News and Reviews blog.


PHOTO: Haley Reinhart performing "I (Who Have Nothing)" on American Idol Top 4 night. Screencaps c2011, FOX.