MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

As Richard Rushfield of the Los Angeles Times has pointed out this week, the fan wars triggered by last year's epic finale showdown between David Cook and David Archuleta are still going on. All you have to do is read the comments of any blog post that tries to compare the two.

It's interesting to dig deeper into this phenomenon. Here are some of my observations:
• Personal taste aside, both singers are talented. Archuleta, a former "Star Search" winner, was essentially groomed to be a pop music star. Along the way he's had professional vocal training and even took a Babizon modeling class. Some top vocal trainers have praised his skills, even though such "runs" are sometimes criticized as showboating on "Idol."

Cook, meanwhile, made an impact on the show with a crowd-pleasing ability to apply contemporary rock styling to older songs, such as "Hello" by Lionel Richie and "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles. Unlike Archuleta, he labored away as a bartender and bar-band frontman for years before getting his break on "Idol." Cook came across as a more polished showman than Archuleta. And Cook's no slouch in the voice department either.

• They are not competing in the marketplace. Cook's debut CD is straight-ahead rock, while Archuleta's is primarily pop, bordering on adult contemporary.

• They like and respect each other. Both report a big-brother, little-brother type of relationship that continues through frequent text messaging.

Bottom line: If you prefer one David or another, please keep in mind that any sense of competition between the two is long over. And when it did really exist, it was a construct of a TV show geared at manufacturing conflict for the sake of TV ratings.

None of this means you can't express a preference for one or the other. It just means that dissing the other one is really kind of pointless. With that in mind, time for another survey!

P.S. - I was in the Archuleta camp.