CIA Chief's Game Prediction Was Super

CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden is a man with a lot of secrets—including his, uh, spooky success as a Super Bowl seer. The lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan correctly predicted the outcome of the Super Bowl XLII, picking the Giants to upset the formidable New England Patriots in the annual celebrity prediction poll conducted last week by the Scripps Howard News Service.

Hayden was almost dead-on with the margin of victory, calling the Giants by four points. (They won by three, with a final score of 17-14.) It remains unclear whether he harnessed any of Langley's vast resources, but he did say, "Careful intelligence work looks beyond the obvious."

His soothsaying was not perfect—he predicted a higher-scoring game that would finish up 28-24.

But the CIA director's skills do not appear to be simply a fluke. Last year, he predicted in the same poll that the Indianapolis Colts would beat the Chicago Bears 27-14. The final score: Indianapolis 29, Chicago 17.

— Kevin Whitelaw