Gregg Easterbrook, of the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Monthly, and ESPN.com, is earth's best NFL columnist. Here's his take on the Super Bowl.

Easterbrook, however, says something laughably incorrect in about his third paragraph:

The popularity of American-style football is likely to grow internationally – gridiron is taking off in Mexico at the moment, for instance. Not only is football fun to watch and to play, most of the world continues to admire the United States and look up to us – it's our foreign policy the world disdains; the American dream remains beloved almost everywhere. As democracy expands and more nations liberalize, more nations will long to become like the United States. And since football resides near the core of American culture, more people internationally will want the sport. They will reason, "America is strong and free and prosperous, America loves football, maybe football somehow helps you become strong and free and prosperous."

Maybe in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, but not in Western Europe or Latin America, where everything about the United States is despised. It's not our foreign policy, Mr. Easterbrook, it's us they don't like.