The Wimps Who Stole Christmas

Apparently the Eagles' official No. 1 Fan agrees with me on this one. Gov. Rendell told KYW-TV last night that he also disagreed with the postponement – "This is football," he said, "football's played in bad weather" – and made many of the same arguments about the subway and major highways remaining open. Even worse, he said in response to a question that legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi would "be mocking us."

Totally.

I know what some of you are thinking (partly because I road-tested my outrage on Twitter) - that some drunk yahoo would have driven into a ditch or skidded into an unsuspecting motorist after the game. I don't even know where to start with this one. For one thing, if you're that worried about drunk yahoos causing mayhem after games, then you should work to cancel every sporting event ever held in Philadelphia. What's more, I guarantee you that some drunk yahoo is going to drive into a ditch, or worse, after the city's New Year's fireworks, so we might as well deep-six that event now, while we're on a roll.

Ultimately, life is all about risk management, and the reward of football in the snow - so often a beautiful thing - means that thousands of fans, not to mention the players and coaches who seem disappointed and befuddled by this decision, were willing to take a few risks to see it. You know, a term that gets used a lot in the great political debate - overused, in my opinion - is whether America has become "a nanny state." Usually I'm on the other side (like when it comes to health care, in which . . . oh, never mind), but in this case I think here it's perfectly OK to channel your Inner Rush Limbaugh and say that "the nanny state" killed this football game.

If we're not "a nanny state," then we've become a nation of overcautious risk managers, also known as wimps. They don't play American football in China, but I believe that if they did, not only would they have played this game, but 300,000 fans would have marched barefoot through the drifts for 15 miles to get to the stadium, drilling each other with advanced calculus problems as they walked.

In a few years, they'll come here and conquer what's left of America while we huddle on our TV-room couches to keep safe and warm, watching "A Christmas Story" on TBS for the ninth time after a forecast of flurries has canceled the entire NFL schedule.

Meanwhile . . . the Eagles will be home for Christmas, with DeSean Jackson slip-sliding through the Vikings' secondary, Michael Vick crashing through the end zone and into a snowbank, and David Akers kicking the game-winning extra point into the howling teeth of a Nor'easter . . .

. . . but only in my dreams.