Punxsutawney Phil and 'Delaware O'Donnell:' Who's Smarter?

With the unusual spate of winter storms striking at the heart of the nation, Punxsutawney Phil might consider himself a marked man- er, groundhog. Seriously, if you were that little rodent Punxsutawney Phil, would you pronounce to a mob of house-bound humans verging on weather-induced insanity that they had six more weeks to suffer?

No, if Phil has any smarts at all, he's going to do whatever it takes to signal the advent of spring. No one's going to remember come spring if his prognostication was wrong. So even if Phil has to learn to point to calendar pages, he'll give us what we want if he has an iota of acumen. Consider Feb. 2- Groundhog Day- a chance to learn just how smart groundhogs are. Or at least how smart one groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil is.

One sign that groundhogs aren't entirely unintelligent is that they burrow themselves away for the winter. Unlike humans, they don't go out looking for weather trouble. Hmm, maybe groundhogs are smarter than we think. Groundhogs like Phil seem to not only know it's cold outside but to arrange their lives accordingly.

Punxsutawney Phil is apparently also smart enough to refrain from using unreliable weather prognostication devices. He's never been known to drag a human out of bed to look at its shadow as evidence of how long the cold will last.

And while humans may believe that Phil seeing his shadow Feb. 2 signals six more weeks of winter, the groundhog himself seems not to labor under such misconceptions. After the cameras leave, he goes back in his burrow and stays there until spring arrives, whether it's six weeks or not.

On the subject of animal intelligence, failed Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell warned Bill O'Reilly about some pretty smart rodents back in September. According to O'Donnell, American companies have been cross-breeding mice and humans and have created mice with fully functioning human brains. Is it possible Punxsutawney Phil is no longer a rodent at all but, like those mice O'Donnell talked of, a cross-breed with a fully functioning human brain?

Given the possibility, and given his other signs of higher intelligence, isn't he worthy of enough respect that we let him sleep in until his bio-clock tells him it's time to get up? No need to upset the tradition. Just switch out Phil for Delaware O'Donnell- wave her PJ-clad self in front of a TV camera at daybreak in the frigid weather on Feb. 2 - just don't ask her if she sees her shadow, lest she open her mouth and confuse things.