Posted by Matt Purdue
When I first read my colleague Ed Moed’s take on Tiger Woods, I admit I was a bit miffed. At the time he wrote it, Woods had been in a one-car motor vehicle accident…and that’s pretty much all we knew for sure. Rumors were swirling about his alleged affairs.
My thinking at the time was simple: Leave the man alone for a while. He crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree, and was knocked unconscious. Doesn’t any human being deserve a time to heal up after an auto accident before every so-called journalist and blogger goes crawling through his personal life?
But now, it seems, the worm has turned. Tiger is all but blatantly admitting infidelity, confessing to “transgressions” and being “far short of perfect.” But at the same time, Tiger continues to plead for us to ignore him, declaring that he has a human right to a “measure of privacy.” Funny, but I don’t remember the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights including the freedom to cheat on your wife without getting busted.
Someone call the Bronx Zoo, because we have just discovered a Tiger that can speak out of both sides of its mouth. For years, Tiger has happily taken every dime his sponsors have given him, shilling for products ranging from Gatorade to consulting services. He and his cronies have very carefully created an image of Tiger Woods – a brand, if you will – that the public will trust. Now, Tiger is proving to be quite untrustworthy. And he wants us to ignore that? Fat chance, Tiger.
Another one of my colleagues, Lia LoBello, suggests that Woods’ sponsors and fans will “quickly forgive and forget” this sordid Tiger tale. I beg to differ. This is going to cost him legions of supporters and millions of dollars.
No one’s saying Tiger should be perfect. In fact, I think many of us would be shocked if a rich, young, good-looking, well-traveled sports celebrity did not play the field. (See Lance Armstrong, for one.) No, we’re not asking Tiger to be perfect. We’re just asking him to not be a crook.
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