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Cruise: "Listen, the thing you've got to know about Katie is that she's an incredibly bright and self-determined woman. She makes her own decisions."

Even the Philippine Daily Inquirer saw it coming:

What about his children and religion?
 His children are such amazing people. They're just truly amazing and I've really enjoyed every moment with them. And ... his religion is really remarkable.

We're starting to wonder if the word "remarkable" is some kind of subconscious distress signal reflexively issued by our reptillian brain right before they're about to get a thorough scrubbing. But look on the bright side—pretty soon, addicts at NarcAnon Narconon* will be able to have Joey Potter personally—personally—get them off of drugs.

Perhaps now that Holmes no longer has to conceal her sincere love of the e-meter, the Cruise-Holmes publicity team will finally endorse a story about how the couple met, whether it be on a romantic private jet ride to Clearwater or a candlelit dinner in the Celebrity's Centre's most finely-appointed auditing chamber. Two readers note that even notorious hard-balling bully Regis Philbin can't get an answer to The Question:

Just finished watching the Katie Holmes debacle on Regis and Kelly this morning. Katie spent most of the interview behind a curtain of hair, nervously giggling, hanging her head and shrugging her shoulders. When pressed by Kelly to tell how she and Tom met, she began rolling/lolling her head back and forth, shrugging her shoulders and writhing about in her chair. I was afraid she was going into grand mal seizures. I'm usually the first in line to point out human frailties, especially in the case of a celebrity, but this interview made me so damn uncomfortable I've gotta take a Xanax.

Please tell me you caught Katie Holmes on Regis just now. Oh. My. God. Will someone PLEASE make up a story about this first meeting that they can all stick to and remember? You'd think by now they would KNOW she was going to get that question. And still! Stammering, hemming, hawing, blushing, laughter...and no answer. At all!

And of course, the obligatory "Reege Doing The Cruise" moment, which will definitely be in every one of the
rags this week, no question. It's all just too gloriously painful.

[*We're sure that any confusion arising from the similarity of "Narconon" to "NarcAnon" is completely unintentional.]