Whaddya Want, Actual Talent?

The Virginian-Pilot’s editorial today focuses on Ashlee Simpson’s lip-synching debacle on ‘Saturday Night Live’ over the weekend. “The 20-year-old Simpson brought all this on herself, by trying to up her alternative-rock credibility by insisting she would never lip-synch, a strange claim for somebody who had a backing track all ready to go,” the editorial staff wrote. “Still, we’re surprised by the betrayed outcry that all this has generated, not to mention the media attention. Simpson is, after all, a product every bit as manufactured as the CDs she was built to sell. When a star rises based on nothing more than packaging, should we really be surprised when the package turns out to be empty?”