Posted on 02/19/2010 8:04:25 AM PST by publius321
The Tiger Woods story is back in high gear and the media love it. I’ve heard several people compare his plight to that of Bill Clinton and other disgraced politicians. In my mind the only people to whom Tiger Woods owes an apology are his wife, children and his sponsors. Tiger Woods doesn’t foist his morals or lack thereof on the public by signing or vetoing legislation. Tiger Woods doesn’t nominate Supreme Court Justices and Tiger Woods is not the Commander of the most powerful military on Earth.
Tiger Woods plays a game. If anyone, the people who owe us an apology are the media for bombarding us with the sordid details of his flings. We all know that many children were fans of Tiger Woods and now millions of children have no doubt been talking about his scandal on the school playground, which is very unfortunate. If on the night Tiger wrecked his car and the media pretended these affairs never happened, how would your life be different? If you and/or your children to this day believed that Tiger was the hero he was thought to be by many, would you be worse off? The question is WHY do people feel they have a RIGHT to know the details? There used to be this thing called –discretion.
It amazes me how skewed the values of the media are when it comes to their assessment of which public figures should be held accountable for bad behavior. We now find ourselves with a “mystery President” who years ago, in order to diffuse a scandal, wrote a book in which he admitted to cocaine use. When someone about whom we know very little, also has the least amount of experience of any Presidential candidate in history - throws out a comment in regard to “experimenting with cocaine” - isn’t worthy of a little media follow up? Where in the h e double L were these assiduous reporters then???? When someone is contending for the Presidency of the United States of America, doesn’t such a statement beg the question of WHAT constitutes “experimenting” with cocaine Mr. Obama? What type of cocaine was it Mr. Obama, crack rock or the snorting kind? How about WHEN was your LAST experiment? Is that why a young guy like you can’t string together a cogent statement without reading it off of a teleprompter?
Then there’s a gay man out there by the name of Larry Sinclair who has been ignored by our state run media but was appearing in foreign media declaring that he and Obama had an affair and a cocaine party in Sinclair’s Limo while Obama was an unknown state legislator. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MceFVpJ-Gyc I’m not saying I believe the man but I certainly wouldn’t be –surprised- if he were telling the truth considering the ineptitude of people who fancy themselves “journalists”. No one knows anything about Obama's past. He's gone by several different names throughout his life, his family says they saw him born in Kenya, no one's seen his official birth certificate, his college transcripts are sealed, so what do we know about him? Shouldn’t someone in this aggressive media have investigated him to some degree before becoming his campaign shills? Of course not; it’s not as though he is a PGA golfer or some other occupation in which moral character has any relevance.
For those who feel that Tiger owes you an apology - why? Did he come to you and boast about what a pillar of rectitude he was in order to induce you to sign a contract? NO. Would you not have bought that Nike cap or used Accenture for your company? This guy was one of the more reticent athletes I have ever seen. It’s not like he was out promoting a particular set of values. He seemed to want to avoid getting involved with politics. I’m not a golf fan and I find what he did offensive but what is perhaps more offensive to me is that I –know- about it. The insipid assertion that “if you don’t like it, you can change the channel” doesn’t apply. This story is inescapable. It has been everywhere from the checkout line of virtually every store, radio, television, newspaper, Internet headlines and being talked about throughout workplaces and schools around the country.
I don’t expect an apology from Tiger Woods. I want an apology from the voyeuristic media for their ineptitude, double-standards and disrespect.
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Did you hear gloria alred on Fox a while ago? lol Oh my God the hilarious victim porn star booty call - she is so hurt - she never wanted to hurt his wife or child and thought she was the only one!! lol How does gloria go on air and really pretend to believe this stuff?
“it seems to me that you and publius want to lay all of this at the feet of the public, instead of at Tiger’s feet.”
No, the way the public is reacting is understandable. I just think that part is tangential because we shouldn’t have -known- about Tiger’s personal life because Tiger doesn’t make his living promulgating laws, crafting legislation or doing anything that affects me aside from entertaining me (if I were a golf fan).
I just get a little nauseous listening to people take themselves so seriously. These are tough times and most of the acrimony I’m hearing is resentment about MONEY. People are looking to flogg someone, especially if they made a billion dollars hitting a golf ball around and endorsing products.
Again, I’m not defending his behavior, If he were a Congressman, Senator, President or my Pastor, I would be the first to say that he should not be allowed to remain in his station.
I suspect that many of these people shouting the loudest have similar demons.
“By the comments here I wonder why anyone complained about Bill Clinton, or John Edwards?”
Because, as I have written repeatedly, I complained about Clinton, Edwards and Hussein because the office to which they aspired nominatedsa Supreme Court Justices for LIFE, athey have command over the armed forces, nominate Treasury Secretaries, Federal Reserve Chairman among other things and the consequences of their personal character affect not only ourselves but our posterity.
Isn’t it more important to examine the personal character of someone whom we elect to assume the aforementioned authority over the fate of our nation? Should I care whether the person to whom I afford those responsibilities is a scoundrel?
If we had never known a thing about Tiger’s deviant behavior - and he “got away with it” with none of us ever finding out. How would our lives been affected? His wife would probably have been affected (by an STD at the very least) - but ladies and gentleman - WE did not marry Tiger Woods and I dare say we would have been much better of had we never known about this.
Tiger isn't your run of the mill cheater - this guy is ill - even clinton didn't shag this many women and we all know the dog he is. Tiger is a public figure and as pointed out many times on this thread, he was a paid spokesperson for many products. Those companies thought he was a good person to represent their company, so do they deserve an apology? How about to be reimbursed? lol Several of the whores have hired attorneys - do they deserve anything? Were they duped or part of the problem, knowingly screwing a married man? The whole issue is pathetic - I hope Tiger gets some help but you can't possibly dismiss his behaviour just because he isn't a politician.
Same here, that’s why I decided not to post on this thread.... oh wait....
Apologize?? Huh? It sounds like Tiger was the victim! I had wondered if he had her arrested. He should have. He is an abused spouse, and folks that isn’t anything to be ignored! She is violent, and there is no reason for her to attack someone! If Tiger goes back to her, the next attack may kill him.
Expecting an apology from the victim of a crime is stupid.
He and his sponsors marketed an image to get $ from the public. The public has a right to know if it is a scam.
Lots of people market lots of things to get dollars from me, but I haven't noticed anyone putting a gun to my head to get those dollars.
Did anyone put a gun to the head of any member of the public forcing him or her to fork over any money to anything he endorsed?
Did anyone put a gun to the head of any member of the public forcing him or her to pony up for a chance to watch him play golf live along the fairways or surrounding the greens?
This wasn't like taxpayers being robbed (which is precisely what taxation is) on behalf of, among other things, financing a government whose chief of state engaged a little nooky in the Oval Office and committed perjury, suborned perjury, and obstructed justice to cover it up.
It's one thing to inform the public that a sportsman marketed as a role model proves to have clay feet, but it's something else entirely to suggest the public---who wasn't forced to buy into the image or buy anything he endorsed---has a right to know he didn't live up to a considerable portion of his image.
He was supposed to be a hero and turned out to be a human being, as flawed as any one of us might be flawed, whether or not we might commit his particular transgression.
A right to know? How about the individuals who comprise "the public" begin using the brains they were (reputedly) born with and thinking for themselves, for a change, and quit thinking---on their own or by way of one or another groupthink---through the dubious lenses of celebrities when seeking to satisfy their needs, wants, or both?
Or am I asking, essentially, that the public should act beyond its competence?
I think you are asking that the public not be informed.
I think the most important point he made in the apology was standing up for his wife, kids and mom. I think the guy really loves his wife and is in anguish because of how his behavior is affecting his whole family.
We all had laughs about Elin hitting him with the golf clubs. Imagine that it’s not true, and Tiger knows it and how horrible he feels about how his wife has been portrayed in the media - and all because of him. There will be people who will NEVER BELIEVE that Elin DIDN’T go after him with the golf clubs.
I’m not a golf fan or a Tiger fan. But I was impressed with this apology. It sure looked sincere to me. Frankly, I hope he is successful in cleaning up his act and his wife finds a way to forgive him.
I think you are asking that the public not be informed.Show me any crime he committed to cover his behaviour and then come back to me.
Show me where he holds any official public office or trust, the performance of which affects far more lives far more directly than any swing of a golf club or voluntary consumer consumption, toward which his behaviour might have a more legitimately detrimental effect than it does against a gaggle of brain-compromised geese flocking merely because his name was attached in one or another way to some product the quality or performance of which is never guaranteed merely because his name is attached to it, and then come back to me.
Tiger Woods was no public official. Nobody forced the public to pay his competition prize monies or to buy any product he might have endorsed. I buy tickets to baseball games every season, but I don't remember there being any clause on the terms of the purchase that I had any bloody business getting involved with any baseball player's business other than how he plays the game on the afternoon or evening I'm in the ballpark to watch.
Or does every last professional sportsman owe the public an accounting for his or her life off the course, the field, the court, the ice, the slope, the whatever, once he or she accepts even a single endorsement, never mind the gaggle of endorsements that went Tiger Woods' way, to a product even one member of the public might buy for no better reason than that it was endorsed by a celebrity whose sole competence to speak of the product just might have been that he or she was enough of a celebrity to attract the endorsement offer in the first place?
Show me where their transgression affects the actual performance of the job that made their name in the first place and then, maybe, I've got a small right to know whether it affected the performance for which I paid freely to watch. If Tiger Woods's adulteries had wreaked an explicit impact upon his performance on the golf course and I'd paid the necessary cost to watch that performance along the fairway itself, then, maybe, and a rather large maybe it is, I'd have the right to know that his concentration on his work had been affected by his behaviour off the job. Or, if those adulteries had put him in position to be bribed away from performing at the level I would expect him to try to perform when I pay to see him play live, then, maybe, I'd have the right to know that his honest performance of his work---we assume that, in sports, the most honest performance possible is no guarantor of winning---had been affected by his behaviour.
Barring those conditions, the "right" to know that he was a philanderer is neither mine nor anyone else's among "the public." If he chose to reveal he'd been a philanderer and chose likewise to express his remorse, the choice would have been his alone to make, under whatever concurrent impetus. It would not have been my choice to make for him, or to insist he make, however much I might admire his expression of remorse and regret the behaviour that brought him to such a point.
He committed fraud when he publicly stated that he put his family first.
LOL! Someone.. I can’t remember who.. came right out and said to Tiger.. “Forget this Buddism stuff.. Become a Christian.” Hehe.
IMHO, while it lasted, Woods was having a great time fooling around and fooling everyone, with his carefully crafted image, most of all his family and his loyal and adoring fans.
The only thing I think he is sorry about is that he has been revealed to the world a pathetic gutless fool. The high risks he took to gratify himself without consideration of his marriage, children, fans, sponsors and the PGA shows a true sad sack of a man with gifted talent and golf skill but little respect for himself or anyone else.
Frankly, I'm not easily swayed by his supposed regret, nor do I hold the view that he has some kind of sexual addiction, but I do hold the view that he has a stupid idiot addiction.
His behaviour is a crime in itself. Covering up crimes is also a crime.
I have it on good authority he asked for a Baptist minister in rehab...
The only rehab that works is GOD.. Buddhism didn’t seem to bring him in that direction before.. doubt it will now.
MAYBE YOU NEED TO KMA
His behaviour is a crime in itself.Unless it's listed as a criminal act on the statute books of his home state of record or any state in which he committed it (and we bear in mind that, if it is indeed so listed, it probably falls under the category of "crimes" rarely if ever enforced), his behaviour was a vice, not a crime.
I might agree with you in moral terms about its criminality. But that doesn't mean everything you or I believe to be criminal behaviour is or should be regarded as such under law. We have quite enough clutter and clusterfourlettereuphemismforfornicate on the statute books as it is. Probably three quarters of that mess got there in the first place because someone convinced enough who could make it so that it was high past time that their own pets, usually named Peeve, should be criminalised even if they were mere vices or misbehaviours. (Though I'm sure there are those among us who think it wouldn't be a half bad idea to make adultery punishable by criminal law, and not merely by divorce and alimony and the like.)
Covering up a vice may be repugnant, but you probably don't need me to tell you how many merely repugnant acts are not defined by law as criminal acts.
That said, I would ask this as well: Why should his wife and children suffer any further humiliation than they have experienced already because of misbehaviour that is a vice and not a crime in temporal terms? (Spiritually, of course, it is something else again . . . ) Because "the public" also have the right to impose, even in the breach of a dubious enough right, further humiliation upon the victims of his misbehaviour?
It is a crime in Florida.
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