Last Tuesday night, Fox bumped American Idol and 24 to air President Bush's news conference. Viewers were furious.

Now, I don't watch either of those shows. I've never seen 24 at all, and after watching 15 minutes of American Idol in its first season, I decided it wasn't really my bag. But even without any attachment to those shows, I can honestly say that I would prefer watching either of them over watching the President speak.

First off, watching the President speak on television is about as obnoxious as watching a 5th grader try to read Finnegan's Wake off a teleprompter. But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that Fox took away an Entertaining Fantasy option and replaced it with a Boring Reality option.

We're Americans! We don't want to be bogged down with the reality of our nation and the surrounding world (although, I doubt we could get that from Bush's news conference, anyway). Most of our lives are spent trying to avoid reality. This is why we spend so much time in front of the TV and in bars or in college. We gravitate towards the places where reality has the least amount of power over us.

I think it's completely reasonable for viewers of American Idol and 24 to be angry. Reality is the scourge of America and I, for one, will not let it stand in the way of my divertissements.