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It’s the biggest and most exciting reality television show to hit America since the fat Texan cocktail waitress won American Idol.

A cross between Survivor, Big Brother and Dancing With The Stars, it’s been dominating the networks, papers and blogs for almost a year.

So why don’t they just ditch all the political analysis and just call it what it is? Presidential Idol: 2008.

Stock characters have been fighting it out since the very beginning of the competition.

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Mouth-Breather Brown shows the Yanks how it's done by appearing on American Idol

 

Firstly, McCain. No one expected the elderly, veteran, combover guy to win the Republican nomination.

But he snuck up from behind on the bible-bashing guy and the shifty Italian guy and clinched the deal, with all the benign ruthlessness of your average Joe Pasquale. The underdog always wins, people.

As with any good reality show, there have been tears.

Not a millionth as many as you’d get in the average episode of Extreme Home Makeover, but some (this is politics after all- although I’d pay good money to see a lachrymose Ken Livingstone eat his own amphibians in the jungle).

Hillary’s infamous “eye mist” won her New Hampshire, feeble and phoney as it was.

It was only a shame that there was no fawning Cat Deeley nearby to hand her a tissue.

Then there are the villains. I’m tempted to boo and hiss every time the Clintons take a low dig at Obama. Not to mention Mitt “The President Doesn’t Have To Obey the Constitution” Romney, although thankfully he’s gone.

And who didn’t cheer when Rudy Giuliani got voted off the island?

Between the allegations of using public money to visit his mistress, and the indictment of “close friend” Bernard Kerik for tax fraud, when it came down to the public vote, Rudy was toast.

We get it. People love reality television. And networks love people (or ratings, at least).

Which is why the televised debates this year have had all the intellectual punch of a Nancy Drew mystery.

Among the more discerning questions: Is Obama a Yankees or a Red Sox fan? Where did Hillary get that awful blouse?

But what really makes me shake my head (and/or the television) and wonder if I’m watching CNN or MTV is the sheer banality of it all.

At the end of last month, Obama went bowling in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He duly sucked, prompting a barrage of media analysis about what that means. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough declared, “He bowls like my four-year-old daughter.”

So what? Is this a banana republic?

Or is this elaborate conceit going to be expanded to the extent where foreign policy is decided over croquet?

Maybe Putin and Bush could battle it out over a game of Guitar Hero. Olmert and Ahmadinejad could play tiddlywinks.

It’s only slightly less plausible than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama deciding the outcome of the Democratic race in a bowl-off, which is what the media seems to be demanding after HRC’s April Fool’s prank. Hell, it’d save time. And money. Here’s hoping for Presidential Idol: 2012.