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Sailor passes ‘Idol’ Latin test

Despite being a hairless white man, Phil Stacey demonstrated on Wednesday night he knew how to satisfy television viewers’ need for smoky Latin charisma — “American Idol” voters kept him on for another week.

Stacey, a musician third class with the Navy Band in Jacksonville, Fla., was one of the two lowest vote-getters this week, after what host Ryan Seacrest said was the biggest electronic turnouts of the season, some 35 million votes. This was the fourth time Stacey has been singled out as a low draw, but by now it’s old hat, and each time he has stubbornly hung on.

“I feel good to be there, I’m just blessed,” he told Seacrest with a broad smile.

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Eliminated instead was Haley Scarnato, a toothsome Amazon whose “Idol” success thus far was credited as much to her hemlines as her singing. She also has been a regular low person on the “Idol” totem pole, and Stacey walked out and hugged her when she had finished her farewell song.

But still safe this week was national laughingstock Sanjaya Malakar, who warbled in Spanish, sported a penciled-on dirt-stache and received some of the strongest praise of his “Idol” career.

Fox could just put out a press release each week announcing which of its “Idol” singers have been cut, but instead it elects to air a second “Idol” episode, meaning it must figure out what to put on between the commercials. And network programmers gave themselves an extra challenge this week, because henceforth the results episodes are stretched from 30 minutes to a full hour, necessitating all kinds of new material unrelated to the contest: A segment with judge Simon Cowell in Africa; Seacrest asking people on the street what they thought about the previous night’s show; and not one, but two concert performances, from nasal rapper Akon and “celebrity coach” Jennifer Lopez.

Without the extra material, though, television-watchers never would’ve learned what Stacey thinks about Lopez: “She’s as wonderful a person as she is a star,” he said.

The sailor will sing on the next edition of the “Idol” spectacle on April 17, when the theme will be country.

Multimedia:

High marks from Jenny from the block

Discuss:

Does Phil Stacey have what it takes to be the next American Idol?