Ostensibly, Noonan’s main point was about the importance of political issues that don’t have to do with the ubiquitous economic crisis that is also quite apt to pepper a conversation. Besides offering little evidence that the American public is, in fact, more worried about social issues than economics ones (she supports it with: “There are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns”), the article has another major flaw. Make no mistake: this is not a story about an angry liberal attacking a perceived conservative newspaper. I would hope anyone reading Mediaite regularly would realize how foolish it is to brand a newspaper based on its op-ed pages. We’re past that tired debate, aren’t we? This is the story of poor journalism.

Noonan’s problem is that she hinges on homophobia. She uses Adam Lambert as an example of everything that’s going wrong with America and its family values.

I don’t mean to make too much of it. In the great scheme of things a creepy musical act doesn’t matter much. But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

Translation from poorly codified indiscretion: Gay people are ruining America. And Ms. Noonan? Saying Adam Lambert felt like he was the victim of bigotry doesn’t refute…um…anything.

Reading Noonan’s article is as unbearable as listening to Carrie Prejean’s infamous pageant response (especially when you read the comments of both). In reviewing both ad nauseum, I can’t ignore disturbing shorthand homophobia. It’s a not-so-subtle way of talking that allows people of like minds to say just about everything except the offensive things they actually want to say. They have an easy circumvention: values. They might even actually convince themselves that values are at stake when the real cause is the fear of change. What’s scarier is that we’ve come to accept the logic that gay people equal bad values. Even as I read Noonan’s article, I disagreed with her pander to the cynic before I disagreed with the way she paints Adam Lambert as antithetical to all that is good. But unlike Noonan, I’ll prove my point: Gay people have values, too.

As I said, though, this is about poor journalism. Good journalism, I think, should rest itself on solid reasoning. Without distrust for the “alternative” lifestyle Adam Lambert now represents, Noonan’s piece comes across as aloof and out of touch. But with it, she rallies the base. Proof? That fact that she didn’t write this article after the Britney and Madonna kiss.

So the question now is, shouldn’t we demand journalism that speaks through ingenuity instead of ignorance?

Lambert addressed the backlash, but offered no apology. And CBS didn’t seem completely comfortable with it either.

During the pre-taped interview with Maggie Rodriguez, discussed the criticism of the inappropriateness of his performance. “I’m not a babysitter, I ‘m a performer,” said Lambert.

But we didn’t get to the see key parts of the performance as CBS played the b-roll during Rodriguez’ questions, because CBS blurred out both the simulated oral sex and Lambert’s kiss with a band member. The kiss is especially telling, considering they did not blur out the Madonna-Britney kiss from 2003 earlier in the show, according to TVNewser. And it should be noted that the lower third described the segment as “Straight Talk” during the entire interview.

The double standard of his critics – and, apparantly, CBS’ The Early Show – is something Lambert touched on. “Lady Gaga, smashing whiskey bottles, Janet Jackson grabbing a male dancer’s crotch, Eminem talked about how Slim Shady has 17 rapes under his belt,” said Lambert. “There was a lot of very adult material on the AMAs this year, and I know I wasn’t the only one.”

More on double standard from Lambert: “If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage I don’t think there’d be nearly as much of an outrage at all…I think it’s a double whammy. I think it’s because I’m a gay male.”

With all the extra attention Lambert is gaining from the controversy, we’ll see next week if it affects album sales. At the very least, he’s become a topic of conversation, and a chance to talk about broader issues, regardless of what you think of the music.

Here’s the interview, and below, Lambert’s performance:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

At the end of the show, Lambert performed two songs, beginning with what will be his first single, “What Do You Want From Me.” While the CBSNews.com link says “Adam Lambert Live,” it appears the performance, which was stripped down and more of a ballad, was pre-taped as well. Lambert’s pre-taped performance on Late Show with David Letterman airs tonight:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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TVNewser reports Lambert’s planned performance on ABC’s Good Morning America has been canceled.

An ABC News spokesperson told TVNewser, “Given his controversial live performance on the AMAs we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning.”

But don’t expect Lambert to be held off ABC’s airwaves for long – GossipCop reports Lambert will be named one of Barbara Walters‘ “Most Fascinating People of 2009,” and will be part of her special on December 9. Still, there won’t be a performance.

The media push for Lambert’s new CD seems to be a combination of good and bad publicity for the pop star and his management team at RCA records, from the AMA closing performance to magazine covers. The buzz is certainly huge, but being canceled on a morning show watched by millions is a step backward. One question that has to be raised is whether the fact that Lambert is gay and the performance contained Lambert kissing (and more) male back-up dancers led to the cancellation? Would Lady Gaga’s sexual performance have led to the same result? When Access Hollywood caught up with Lambert after his AMA performance, he said he “wished people could open their minds up and enjoy things.”

In the same interview, he talked about what was coming up, teasing an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman for Monday night. That performance seems to have been pushed to tomorrow night, but will be taking place. Of the performance coming up on CBS, Lambert says, “the thing is, the song I’m performing on Letterman is a totally different energy.”

Here’s the Access interview:

> Update: CBS’ The Early Show booked Lambert for a performance and interview tomorrow morning instead.

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Instead, they’ll be about Adam Lambert‘s hip thrusts, J-Lo’s fall and a near nip-slip. Let’s take a look at the AMA moments you’ll be talking about today.

Adam Lambert simulates some oral sex with both a male and female back-up dancer. ABC decided to cut away from the performance to an awkward audience shot during the male-thrusting:

Jennifer Lopez performed her new song “Louboutins.” Right before her big dance break, she takes a spill jumping off a back-up dancer. The key part was after the performance when they cut to Lopez getting angry in a backstage look-in:

Kate Hudson had either a near nipple slip or an actual nipple slip that ABC blurred out. Either way, it was close, and when she adjusted her dress, the audience laughed in acknowledgment:

> Related: Rachel Sklar looks at “post-sexy”, and the performances of Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert.

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There’s no question that Gaga — and Glambert too — stand firmly on Madge’s muscled shoulders, but after pushing the envelope for so long it seems to have gotten pushed into something different. In this seen-it-all age of the meta, the dramatic, fearless, hyper-sexualized personas of Gaga and Glambert are less transgressive than reflective — two operatic baroque, characters less pushing the envelope than wearing it. Call it “Post-Sexy”: Incorporating and heightening the conventions of a sex-charged culture, so as to move beyond it.

Madonna delighted in shocking (think back to that Like A Prayer video) and revealing (think back to that coffetable Sex book). She loved forcing the
world to look at stuff. With Gaga and Glambert it’s less a reveal than an acknowledgment, of this era in which bootylicious women dance nakedly on boats and Miley pole-dances and Kate Hudson’s dress is commonplace. It’s even there in their nicknames — Glambert and Gaga. They roll easily off the tongue, and for some reason they don’t sound at all goofy when you say them (like “blog” and “Twitter” always will. Or “Mediaite”).

Watching them, you almost forget that they have boatloads of talent. Glambert can wail on a high note like nobody’s business, and the singing, dancing, piano-playing, songwriting Gaga is every kind of threat there is. There’s one kind of threat Gaga has that Lambert doesn’t though: Confidence. Lady Gaga has perfect confidence on stage — not bravado, just a serene comfort in who she is, what she is doing and why she is doing it. Lambert has confidence too, of course, but tonight showed it to be more the aggressive, defiant bravado of the over-confident. Lady Gaga and her dancers were flesh-toned, nearly naked, gyrating on the ground, but that wasn’t the focus, it was part of the whole rather than a distraction from it. That, alas, could not be said of Lambert, whose performance lacked the pure, art-for-the-sake-of-art theatricality of Gaga (or, really, his album cover). It felt a little like a starlet timing her crotch shot just so for the paprazzi. S&M-garbed dancers and that already-infamous head-grab (yes, that one) are not exactly subtle. Or, really, even that edgy; crude gestures are nothing new to rock music, which is part of the in-your-face legacy that Lambert has inherited. Like Gaga, he wore rather than pushed the envelope; he just didn’t wear it well.

Lambert’s talent and presence are equal to far more than that number gave him (or really, that fairly forgettable song) — there’s nothing brave or edgy about being in a suit when everyone else is in S&M gear (indeed, the frame at 2:41 made me think of this). The irony is that Lambert, who counts among his fans the gay, straight and bi-confused of all ilks, was far from his usual thrilling, sexy self, perhaps because the number had such a manufactured, mean edge. It was far, too, from the “unapologetic flamboyance and sexual swagger” of his thrilling Idol performances (that description, incidentally, is Out editor Aaron Hicklin’s, and judging from the lack of freshness and fun in that number, he may have a point).

Despite being given some lame material to work with, though, Lambert is still a star, capable of Gaga-esque heights as soon as he — and his team — trusts himself to do it, with some cheek and risk and authenticity and emotion (he reminded me a bit of Ted Neely in there — see 3:07 — and man, would I love to see him sing that one). “Bad Romance” is an awesome tune, but amid the flames and smashing glass and bare assed-ness of “Speechless” the real star was Gaga and that voice. God I would have loved to have seen something similar from Glambert. Next time.

Compare and contrast below:

By the way, I feel like there must be a connection between the blatant, explicit sexual nature of Gaga and Glambert — whose performances wear the permissive mores of our society like a fancy headdress or a harness — and the repressed, charged, yearnful yet chaste world of Twilight, which is the other thing burning up the Zeitgeist right now. I’m still in the throes of early infatuation for all three — Gaga, Glambert and all things Twilight — so I’m not quite there yet. But, after careful consideration, I will say this: TEAM EDWARD.

(Lady G photos via FYLadyGaga)

Or, as Michelle Collins puts it at Best Week Ever:

This album cover is the FANCIEST THING WE HAVE EVER WITNESSED. Unicorns may not exist, but gay ones certainly do, and this album cover is more of a warning to that endangered species: Step your game up, you cashmere soft, ivory horned, glittery hooved motherf**kers. Cause Lambert’s through f*ckin’ around, y’all. Thank you, you beautiful Lambert, you. You have not let us down.

I KNOW! I love me some Glambert! This kid is my new favorite superstar — and extra points for getting more people to talk about his album cover than usually talk about an album. Did he know exactly what he was doing? Oh, yes. From EW:

“Thank you to those who appreciate and understand that the album cover is deliberately campy. It’s an homage to the past. It IS ridiculous,” he wrote this morning. “For those that don’t get it: oh well… Glad to have gotten your attention,” he continued. “Androgyny. Rock n Roll.”

Also from EW, which clearly CAN’T GET ENOUGH ADAM LAMBERT, a separate post from Michael Slezak:

Is America ready for this particular jelly? Some of my EW colleagues aren’t terribly optimistic, but might I remind them, we’re dishing a dude who sailed through Grand Ole Opry week with a hyper-sexual, sitar-infused take on “Ring of Fire.”

Slezak then goes all Kremlinological on it and tries to divine the hidden meaning within the cover’s dreamy depths (hints of Madonna, Prince and MJ; suggestions of nudity; Glambert may be an alien from an extremely hot, flamboyant planet). You really cannot stop looking at his eyes. Nor would you want to:

Adam Lambert Has a Message: “Step Up Your Game, Fancy Unicorns” [BWE]
Adam Lambert’s outre-space ‘For Your Entertainment’ cover: What do you think? [EW]
Adam Lambert confirms album cover ‘deliberately campy’ [EW]

p.s. Who do you like better, Glambert or Clay Aiken? Duh. Vote here.