Two-for-one entry

I never commented on The Apprentice while it aired, but I was addicted. I’m “proud” of myself for picking Bill halfway through the series. I’m “proud” of myself for picking why Mr. Trump chose Bill over Kwame. (It’s not a real source of pride on either point. It’s a tv show, so it doesn’t really matter. Unless it’s Alias. Then it matters more than anything else.)

At the time that Kwame was fired, I didn’t think much more about his future. But it’s no surprise that he’s receiving offers for employment. He’s a qualified businessman (from what I can tell from an edited, weekly television show) with a good education and impressive professional experience. So there’s little mystery that he would get offers. As this article states:

The real game has just begun for “The Apprentice” runner-up Kwame Jackson. Any regret over losing a job with Donald Trump to competitor Bill Rancic was quickly salved by a rush of offers and by Jackson’s own ambitions to make the most of his reality TV fame.

“This was basically a chance to have NBC pay for a 15-episode Kwame commercial in a business environment,” Jackson said of “The Apprentice.”

Ignoring the third person reference to himself, that’s exactly what it was, with the added benefit that NBC knew to edit it well. NBC is not going to humiliate Donald Trump by portraying Kwame Jackson as an incompetent. So it was an ideal situation for him. And losing may not be worse than winning:

Being No. 2 is turning out to be as much a problem for Jackson as it was for “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken, who has outsold winner Ruben Studdard.

“My theme is, ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina,” said Jackson, 30, a Wall Street investment manager before “The Apprentice.”

All the exposure with the bonus of leaving his options open? Sounds like a deal to me.

Now that I’ve made my point, I’d like to roll in the mud for a moment. I’m basing my opinion on the same editing tactics that NBC used to make Kwame Jackson look good, but I despised Omarosa’s “antics”. She appeared fake and a miserable bore. I suspect it would’ve been a challenge to edit her into such a ridiculous character if she didn’t provide enough evidence.

For that reason, Kwame surprised me when he picked her for his team. I screamed at the tv when he didn’t fire her from his team during his final assignment (managing the Jessica Simpson concert).

Even the antics of Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, whose scheming may have cost Jackson the top prize – a $250,000, yearlong job with Trump – is something he shrugs off.

During Jackson’s final “Apprentice” test, staging a concert with Jessica Simpson (news), Manigault-Stallworth flubbed transportation for the pop singer and appeared to fib about it.

Does Jackson think she lied to him?

“There’s no ‘think’ about it. It’s 100 percent on the tape. There’s no need to think about it. It’s like watching Rodney King get beat: How did the bruise happen?” he said.

I wish I’d thought of that line.