Tiger - Just Average

Tiger Woods gave a brief 15 minute statement this morning. The first we’ve seen or heard from him since the public revelations of his sex life late last year. The amount of coverage devoted to Tiger and his sexual trysts over the past couple of months has been truly amazing. Perhaps more interesting is the amount of time over the past 48 hours given over to speculation on what he would say this morning. He even surpassed the profit motives of wall-street as trading came to a near standstill for the 15 minutes he spoke. And on the disgusting side is the coverage and stalking of his wife, children, and friends the past months.

And all of this because he’s, well, just like everyone else.

He’s like Elliot Spitzer, Hugh Grant, Ryan Philippe, Charlie Sheen, Jude Law, Peter Cook, Ethan Hawke, David Boreanaz, Jessie Ventura, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Kobe Bryant, David Vitter, Dick Morris, Larry Craig, Barney Frank, Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, Geraldo Rivera, Newt Gingrich, Bill Randall, Bob Barr, Wayne Pace, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, David Letterman,

…and over 80% of all men.


OK, maybe he’s not totally like David Boreanaz who was married to Rachel Uchitel when he had a mistress (or three?) unlike Tiger for whom Rachel was a mistress. Got it?

Statistically, over 80% of the male journalists, pundits, and others talking about Tiger are no different than he is. And over 80% of the men watching the news coverage or reading the plethora of articles about him are just like him. And over 80% of the women have husbands just like him. Just about every study on this topic indicates that fewer than 20% of married men are monogamous (and then only if you don’t include porn).

And Tiger being average is news? This would be like news bulletins that Tiger believes Elvis is dead. Actually, there are probably more guys who believe that Elvis is alive than are monogamous so Tiger believing Elvis is dead would be more newsworthy.

Who are we to be critical of Tiger? Why is his sex life even remotely any of our business anyway?

I’m not saying that what Tiger did is OK or that it’s OK for anyone. But our collective national hypocrisy (to quote Joseph McNamara) is rather deafening.

We need to get over ourselves.