“Take it one step further than you have. Why has he made an apology to the world that the world is not owed?”
This could devolve into a philosophical discussion about what constitutes ‘the completely selfless act’.
Unless you are unwilling to stipulate that there may have been other motives in addition to the commerically self-interested one you brought up, then there isn’t much to discuss.
I’d certainly agree that AMONG his motivations there were commercially self interested ones. I would also point out that certain people take their commercial commitments seriously, and at the time he was drawing an artificial and delusional line between his conduct in private life, and what he owed his business partners in terms of his public image.
He’s not the first guy in entertainment to cross that line, and he’s one of the few man enough to try to repair that commercial breach with a humiliating public apology.
Newt Gingrich did far worse, in my opinion, and has yet to apologize. I like Newt, but Tiger apologized. If it is the appearance and the fact of impropriety that is the standard here, certainly Newt and other politicians violate that on a daily basis.
I’m not seeing a line form behind Charlie Rangel to resign Congress, for example, for violating that particular standard, and before we start pointing out that Rangel is a liberal, there are plenty of so-called R’s that are in current violation of appearances of impropriety.
Is he motivated by self interest - to be sure, but I think it is just one aspect of his motivation for subjecting himself to this.
He has my respect, and I suppose his actions going forward will bear out either my gullability or support my belief that despite our weaknesses we all have the ability to learn from our idiocy.
You are certainly more gracious and charitable than I am in this context, but I’m not a golf fan, so I don’t carry any Tiger baggage with me.
Of course there were additional motivations for Tiger’s public statement. It is simply my personal opinion that Tiger is doing damage control, with the personal income and the foundation’s income as the primary reasons for the statement. Public statements will not do anything for his marriage. That work is going to be waaaay harder than a public mea culpa. Again, JMO.