{"id":1715,"date":"2012-05-23T07:56:15","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T11:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/changingchannels\/?p=1715"},"modified":"2012-05-23T07:58:36","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T11:58:36","slug":"no-fakin-apprentice-winner-should-have-been-aiken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/changingchannels\/2012\/05\/no-fakin-apprentice-winner-should-have-been-aiken.html","title":{"rendered":"No Fakin&#8217;, &#8216;Apprentice&#8217; Should Be Clay Aiken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Clay Aiken<\/em> raised over $100,000 more for his charity in <strong>The Apprentice<\/strong> finale than his competitor <em>Arsenio Hall<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>He also got the nod from three of five competitors from &#8216;The Donald&#8217; when they were asked who should win the reality show finale.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1716\" style=\"width: 220px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/248\/2012\/05\/Clay_Aiken-w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1716\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/248\/2012\/05\/Clay_Aiken-w.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"293\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clay Aiken<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yet <em>Donald Trump<\/em> went with Hall, and made a mistake in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>Aiken outperformed Hall and rose further than him throughout the competition, as well.<\/p>\n<p>Hall&#8217;s argument that he would go on to continue raising money for charities for Trump was compelling, and ultimately made him the winner, along with stating all the magazine covers he&#8217;s adorned.<\/p>\n<p>Trump fell for that hook, line and sinker despite the fact Aiken&#8217;s star in music is still on the rise, while Hall&#8217;s best days in television are probably far behind him.<\/p>\n<p>What would the former &#8220;late night legend&#8221;, as he was called, do exactly?<\/p>\n<p>Rejoin the already overcrowded and watered-down late night wars? It would be interesting to see if he would\u00a0 be as willing to rip this president as much as he did George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p>I seriously doubt that would happen, however &#8230; either getting a gig, or have a willingness to rip President Obama. To be fair, <em>David Letterman<\/em> still lavishes love on Obama despite a still lagging economy and $5 trillion spent in four years.<\/p>\n<p>Back to The Apprentice &#8230; Aiken was the better choice in my view, with more to offer going forward. Clay could have been molded more, like apprentices usually are, than Arsenio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clay Aiken raised over $100,000 more for his charity in The Apprentice finale than his competitor Arsenio Hall. He also got the nod from three of five competitors from &#8216;The Donald&#8217; when they were asked who should win the reality show finale. Yet Donald Trump went with Hall, and made a mistake in my opinion.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":407,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,6,10,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-game","category-opinion","category-reality","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>No Fakin&#039;, &#039;Apprentice&#039; Should Be Clay Aiken - Changing Channels<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/changingchannels\/2012\/05\/no-fakin-apprentice-winner-should-have-been-aiken.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No Fakin&#039;, &#039;Apprentice&#039; Should Be Clay Aiken - Changing Channels\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Clay Aiken raised over $100,000 more for his charity in The Apprentice finale than his competitor Arsenio Hall. He also got the nod from three of five competitors from &#8216;The Donald&#8217; when they were asked who should win the reality show finale. Yet Donald Trump went with Hall, and made a mistake in my opinion.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/changingchannels\/2012\/05\/no-fakin-apprentice-winner-should-have-been-aiken.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Changing Channels\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-23T11:56:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-05-23T11:58:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/changingchannels\/files\/2012\/05\/Clay_Aiken-w.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mattaug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"No Fakin', 'Apprentice' Should Be Clay Aiken - Changing Channels","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/changingchannels\/2012\/05\/no-fakin-apprentice-winner-should-have-been-aiken.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"No Fakin', 'Apprentice' Should Be Clay Aiken - Changing Channels","og_description":"Clay Aiken raised over $100,000 more for his charity in The Apprentice finale than his competitor Arsenio Hall. He also got the nod from three of five competitors from &#8216;The Donald&#8217; when they were asked who should win the reality show finale. 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