How easy it would be to slam this whole thing.

Simon Cowell looking like he can barely stand to touch the mother with AIDS he's trying to comfort in New York. Billy Ray Cyrus tenderly stepping past folks in a dilapidated Appalachia neighborhood who probably would have kicked his behind, had the Achy Breaky Boy tried sporting the blond/black hair and too-cool aviator glasses he wears now back when he was growing up there.

Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul playing basketball with kids whose families earn less in a year than their dry cleaning bills. Tonight's Idol Gives Back telethon was a big, fat tempting target for any pop culture critic with an ounce of sense. Or irony. Or integrity.

And yet. Though it was too long (at 2.5 hours it STILL went over schedule), too pretentious and, oddly, a little too focused on the parade of sad black victims in America and Africa (the Cyrus trip to Appalachia was a welcome reminder that there are white people in need around the world, too), Idol Gives Back also offered the promise of actually making a difference for people who need it.

Of course, there is the fact that last year's proceeds, mostly pledged to a range of charities over two years, have not been fully distributed. And nobody saying where the interest income from all that cash built up over two years is going.

A few impressions:

-- It was amazing to see the British Prime minister step up and pledge $200-million toward mosquito nets to help curb malaria in Africa. But where, where, WHERE the hell was our own government? (I mean, the people who aren't trying to get elected to something). When a foreign power can come in and face your country on the nation's highest rated TV show, that's saying something.

-- Call me a touchy old fart, but did Fergie really need to upstage poor old Ann Wilson of Heart by doing TWO cartwheels during their duet on Barracuda? Bad enough she jumped out and rocked the high notes better than her elders; her energetic calisthenics made poor hyperventilating Ann look like she was chained to centerstage.

-- Can we get Jimmy Kimmel to come back and take the piss out of Simon Cowell every week? (my fave line: "You make $40-million a year; you can get your hair cut somewhere better than SuperCuts)

-- Miles Cyrus may have been pretending not to know who Billy Crystal was, but my two daughters -- aged 13 and 12 -- had no idea who he was, either.

-- Simon is clearly tired of people joking about his breasts. But, apparently, not enough to stop wearing the undersized sweaters (as the Donald is to hair, Simon is to tight clothing!)

-- While watching Teri Hatcher front a band filled with actors from TV shows, I alternated between surprise that the Australian twit from House could actually play violin to horror that the mind reading police dude from Heroes can barely play drums.

-- Maybe Randy and I really have been separated at birth.  

-- One look at Bono without his glasses makes you realize why he almost never takes them off (another guy, by the way, who my girls didn't know. Despite the fact that my wife has U2's greatest hits on constant rotation in the house. Sigh).

-- Annie Lennox with a piano and microphone is more powerful than a eight wannabe Idols and a stageful of breakdancers. Now THAT's talent for you.