The Colts' D will determine if the game is close or not. The Pats' D is going to give up some points, at least 21. The Pats' O is steady and will perform well, off and on. The question is whether the Colts' D will bend (give up less than 21) or break (give up more than 21).

He could have fired Drew Rosenhaus.

Then he could say, "I'm sorry. I've been following some bad advice. My Super Bowl performance was good, but we didn't win the game, so how good was it, really? I don't deserve a new contract until we win the Super Bowl. ... Oh, and one more thing. I'm sorry I keep exaggerating my injuries. My teammates deserve better."

Unfortunately I didn't hear what Musburger had to say because I can't stand listening to him. I watch the games mostly on mute when he's in the booth. He's like the boy who cried wolf. Every moment of every game is history in the making. So when Holmes is flagged for celebration, in Brent's mind it is an epoch-making event. If he had disagreed with the call, it would have been the worst call in the history of college football.

I think Leinart made a good decision last year, even without the injuries. He is more likely to excel in the NFL with the experience he gained this past season, leading USC through the media blitz and coming to play every week. Standing on the sidelines or getting sacked in SF wouldn't have helped his development as a QB and intangibles as a leader nearly as much.

But Young is different. As King points out, against collegians he can always use his athleticism to scramble his way out of trouble. So he's not going to gain much from another year at that level. We all saw it in the championship game. Southern Cal lost because they couldn't tackle Vince Young. None of the other stuff, like Carroll's 4th-down decisions, matters. If S.C. could have tackled Young when it counted, they would have won. [Same for Michigan the previous year.] They couldn't, and they didn't.

And this comes from someone who had a S.C. pennant in his crib (the kind babies sleep in)--my mother and father are both alumni.

The problem with this article is that it puts forth a list of reasons why Hillary could win a presidential election. It doesn't really explain how she will win the Democratic nomination.

I agree with most of my fellow letter-writers that Hillary will have a much harder time getting the D nomination than this article admits. She appears not to have learned the lesson that Kerry learned in 2004 (and Gore in 2000). At this point, I would support either Kerry or Gore over her, also Feingold. I just don't think she gets it, and it won't be easy for her to change my perception.

However, one seriously flawed assumption that prevails among the letters here is the idea that the GOP base will unite against Hillary if she somehow wins the D nomination. That would certainly be the story reported with glee throughout the media, left and right, but to me it smells like the conventional wisdom. The "slick Willie" attacks aganst her husband didn't work, and the same brand of crap won't work against her either.

Jonathan Papelbon (Red Sox) is a future #1 starter, and he will get his chance this year to prove that when one of the old folks goes down.

Bill Watterson was not a political cartoonist. So that's not a fair comparison. It would be better to compare TT's work to that of other political cartoonists.

They all work within the prevailing political and media culture. It's a culture that has become increasingly oligarchic and one-dimensional. The same old stale dialog over and over. So it's not terribly surprising that attempts to lampoon it have also become stale. [Jon Stewart would probably manage a joke here about how diabolically ingenious it all is!]

As for TT, I sense more raw anger coming through of late. More sarcasm, less humor. It's a delicate balance. I'm sure he'll find it again.

I don't get the connection between the famous Gerald Ford line on Watergate, "our long national nightmare [is over]," and Bush's exploitation of 9/11 to attack Iraq and now probably also Iran. The parallel between the quote and the strip should be the heart of the joke, but it's not there. Or did I miss it?

While I find wake me's weekly complaints tiresome, I agree that TT should spend more time working on improving the irony, humor, and art in his strips and less time working on his blog. Something about the Golden Goose...

But unlike wake me, I appreciate the cut-and-paste "pop art" style. It is something that is very hard to do well. Think Roy Lichtenstein. Mr. Tomorrow would do well to examine how RL developed his art over the course of his career.