The NBC commentators had no idea what they wanted to see, though. Weir's commentary after Aaron's free skate went like this (heavily paraphrased):
(Aaron finishes)
Weir: "He should win."
(Aaron goes over to the kiss and cry and sits down and says hi to everyone etc)
Weir: "He should win."
(Aaron's score comes up and puts him in first overall, he looks really relieved)
Weir: "That's really dodgy, that shouldn't have happened." (What?)
(Rippon skates)
(Rippon's score puts him in the lead)
Weir: "It's all a fix, Aaron should have won"
WHAT DO YOU WANT, WEIR?! DOES AARON WIN OR NOT WIN?
Frankly, the US Nationals result was wrong. Max SHOULD have won that event. Rippon's 4Lz was clearly downgraded and he clearly had an underrotation on the triple Lutz-triple toe and neither of those was called properly (4Lz< and 3Lz-3T clean). BUT what that comes down to was a technical panel that clearly decided they were going to be really lenient at that point, rather than a fix. (And one judge who was clearly...well, I don't know, since they gave Rippon a 10 for IN. With a fall in the program.)
Personally, the USFS was probably thrilled with the result. Aaron didn't win, they got an openly gay champion which looks good for them, Aaron didn't win, Aaron didn't win, they got one of their precious "artists" as Champion, Aaron didn't win...
I don't think the USFS or ISU were too beat up about that result.