We are sorry. During our coverage of the Olympics, we dropped the ball on this one. American Idol has added a fourth judge. That is so they have an extra judge in case of a tie. Whoops, perhaps the show could use a second grade math exercise there.

Kara is a Grammy nominated songwriter of reasonable repute, but few will know who she is.  We are guessing that shouldn’t matter much though. Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were of limited notoriety before they started collecting their huge paychecks for criticizing talent that ultimately gets voted on by America.

Fox apparently is taking a big risk on this added attraction. From Paula Abdul’s input, there was no test to verify the chemistry of the group with a fourth judge, and there are considerable risks placing a new personality at the forefront of the show.

As we indicated above, the math of adding a fourth judge escapes us. It escaped Paula as well, “”That’s gonna be weird if it’s a split decision. I’m sure Simon will get to make the final call. It takes the fun out of all the hard work I do to push those kids through.” In other words, it gives the strongest say to the guy with the loudest mouth, Simon Scowl.

We will reserve our judgment on Kara at this juncture, but we question Idol’s messing with the recipe for the world’s most successful reality television show.

Season 8 of American Idol premieres January 2009 on FOX.