Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Just heard Rush talking about this article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/tiger_barrack_and_the_law_of_t.html
Rush said he and many others who are close to golf have known about Tiger's exploits for over two years.
December 08, 2009</span>
<h1>Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity</h1>
By Lisa Schiffren
<div id="article__ad">
</div>
<div ="article_">
<div>As
a rule, the revelation that a married athlete (or actor, or rock star,
or politician) has conducted extramarital affairs with bevy of "party
girls" may titillate, but rarely has the power to shock. In those
realms, these things happen. Entitled men. Willing women. Deceived
wives. What's new? </div>
<div>So what is it about Tiger Woods that
makes his cheating so different from the usual that ten days on, the
nation is still discussing revelations of conquests, trysts, payoffs,
and physical injuries inflicted by a golf club? </div>
<div>Sure,
there's normal prurience at work. But mostly, we are interested because
Tiger Woods, who may legitimately be the best golfer ever, had been
turned into an all-purpose icon: a man of personal rectitude, a lovely
smile, apparent openness; a family man, with a lovely wife and two
adorable babies. And of course, he was our first living embodiment of
the collective hope for racial reconciliation. Who knew that the early
reports of his betrayed wife Elin swinging at him with a golf club
constituted literal icon-smashing?</div>
<div>We are staring because
we've been had. Betrayed. We see now that the image was all a fraud.
The talent was real. But the things that made the public like Tiger
personally -- the low-key demeanor, manners, and sweet smile of
countless sports-page photos, magazine covers, political analogies, and
most important, product endorsements, was an act. That would be
betrayal enough. But it wasn't just Woods' act. The larger
lesson here is about how much artifice -- sustained, deliberate
deception -- goes into the construction of a public persona when there
is profit to be made or power to be had. </div>
<div>Jack Shafer, the Slate media columnist, spells out how this transpired.
In the beginning, Shafer notes, Woods was your normal young, single,
randy, skirt-chasing, heterosexual athlete. Then, almost overnight, he
became a golf phenom, and
<blockquote>... for business reasons
-- Buick, Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, EA Sports, and Accenture being
among them -- Woods decided to exfoliate from his public image all
things base, carnal, and even personal.
<div>The Tiger Woods
that was constructed for corporate consumption was spotless and smooth,
an edgeless brand easily peddled to sheikhs and shakers.</div></blockquote></div><blockquote><div>Given
how desperately we want to believe in a human god, it didn't take much
peddling from Team Tiger for us to accept Woods as a modern deity. With
every new tournament victory, every new product endorsement, his
divinity grew. His marketers made him a symbol of tolerance and
brotherhood, and his father, Earl Woods, spoke gibberish about his son being a creature of destiny. Getting married and having children only added to Woods' marketability. I'm divine and monogamous and the
center of a happy nuclear family. And we ate it up. So now that the
"real" Woods has been revealed ... we're embarrassed by the gap between
who we believed Woods to be and who he really is.</div></blockquote>
<div>The
unusually sleazy reality, however true to our darker knowledge of human
nature, is especially disappointing because of the wholesome image
we've been sold for so long. "Modern deity" isn't much of an
overstatement. Even now, the same huge corporate effort that went into
creating the billion-dollar nice-guy persona is hard at work trying to
keep it alive -- because if it dies, too many people stand to lose too
much money. </div>
<div>Think about the heroic efforts to "save"
Woods' marriage. In addition to her prenup -- which only "vests" after
a certain amount of time, apparently the much-wronged wife will receive
a huge payment -- $55 million, according
to some reports -- to stay with him for another two years. That would
explain why she hasn't exited stage right. And the millions reportedly
paid to many among the text-message-wielding, semi-pro women involved
suggests the magnitude of everyone's stake in reconstructing an image
able to hawk corporate goods. </div>
<div>Nor was Woods' behavior unknown -- except to the public. In one instance reporters had photos
of a "transgression"...committed in a church parking lot, no less.
These journalists agreed to keep it secret -- if Tiger posed for a
cover story at Men's Fitness Magazine -- a cover that would
sell huge numbers. Normally Woods wouldn't have been available, since
he had an exclusive contract with Conde Nast's Golf Digest.
With full understanding of the situation, Conde Nast allowed the rival
cover because he too profited from having Tiger remain an icon. </div>
<div>Note
that this industry-wide coverup of Woods' cheating (and apparently his
personal nastiness, arrogance, and general non-cuddly nature) is not a
small, secret plot by dedicated fanatics. Rather, it is a set of
interlocking self-interests manifested in sustaining the pristine image
of this one sports icon to keep cash coming in. </div>
<div>But
enough about Tiger the man, who is, after all, only a golfer. Let's
move on to Tiger the metaphor. Because anyone with four functioning
brain cells gets that if this comprehensive a charade can be sustained
for a decade as Woods and those around him amassed billions, it can
happen elsewhere. It can happen right in front of our eyes. </div>
<div>If
I were watching the public's disgust with the newly revealed Tiger
Woods from an office in the West Wing, I'd be concerned. Because Barack
Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this
nation has seen. His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a
public record or accomplishments, and the public's willing suspension
of critical evaluation of his résumé allowed his handlers and the media
to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow. </div>
<div>Ironically,
the parallels have nothing to do with race. The Obama campaign did
explicitly attempt to borrow the from the then-universal Tiger Woods
appeal to allay any discomfort voters might have had with a mixed-race
politician. They constructed a persona that would make the American
electorate comfortable with a barely-known, first-term senator with a
left wing voting record, a deliberately obscured personal and
professional past, and no traditional qualifications for high office. </div>
<div>After
a year in the spotlight, Barack Obama, hailed as a brilliant man and a
creature of destiny who would heal us all, is himself falling rapidly
to earth. (Thankfully, his family life remains above suspicion.) The
flaws that were airbrushed out of the candidate photos are becoming
glaringly obvious under day-to-day scrutiny of his public performance
in the White House.</div>
<div>And while it doesn't matter if
another athlete is an adulterer, it mattersa lot if the president is
revealed to be an inexperienced, excessively ideological, and weak man
who is naïve about the world and uncomfortable exercising American
power during a time of war. It matters if nothing in his training would
have equipped the president to understand what it takes to stimulate
job growth, or ameliorate a recession, or to end an overseas conflict
successfully. It matters that he is uninterested in the science behind
global warming -- and wishes to use the issue to amass power and
reorder society. It matters that he has no interest in the construction
of policy. </div>
<div>Ultimately, Woods is an exceptional golfer
with a character problem. Barack Obama, by contrast, is not an
exceptional, or even particularly competent, leader. But because so
many politicians, interest groups and factions have an interest in his
continued presence, no one is ready to reveal the man behind the
curtain just yet.</div>
<div>But many voters from both the center
and the far left who believed in the Obama magic are increasingly
dismayed by watching the human god fall to earth. This is a major
problem because, as Shafer notes, the impulse of the betrayed is to
tear their fallen deities to shreds.</div>
</div>
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/tiger_barrack_and_the_law_of_t.html
Rush said he and many others who are close to golf have known about Tiger's exploits for over two years.
December 08, 2009</span>
<h1>Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity</h1>
By Lisa Schiffren
<div id="article__ad">
</div>
<div ="article_">
<div>As
a rule, the revelation that a married athlete (or actor, or rock star,
or politician) has conducted extramarital affairs with bevy of "party
girls" may titillate, but rarely has the power to shock. In those
realms, these things happen. Entitled men. Willing women. Deceived
wives. What's new? </div>
<div>So what is it about Tiger Woods that
makes his cheating so different from the usual that ten days on, the
nation is still discussing revelations of conquests, trysts, payoffs,
and physical injuries inflicted by a golf club? </div>
<div>Sure,
there's normal prurience at work. But mostly, we are interested because
Tiger Woods, who may legitimately be the best golfer ever, had been
turned into an all-purpose icon: a man of personal rectitude, a lovely
smile, apparent openness; a family man, with a lovely wife and two
adorable babies. And of course, he was our first living embodiment of
the collective hope for racial reconciliation. Who knew that the early
reports of his betrayed wife Elin swinging at him with a golf club
constituted literal icon-smashing?</div>
<div>We are staring because
we've been had. Betrayed. We see now that the image was all a fraud.
The talent was real. But the things that made the public like Tiger
personally -- the low-key demeanor, manners, and sweet smile of
countless sports-page photos, magazine covers, political analogies, and
most important, product endorsements, was an act. That would be
betrayal enough. But it wasn't just Woods' act. The larger
lesson here is about how much artifice -- sustained, deliberate
deception -- goes into the construction of a public persona when there
is profit to be made or power to be had. </div>
<div>Jack Shafer, the Slate media columnist, spells out how this transpired.
In the beginning, Shafer notes, Woods was your normal young, single,
randy, skirt-chasing, heterosexual athlete. Then, almost overnight, he
became a golf phenom, and
<blockquote>... for business reasons
-- Buick, Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, EA Sports, and Accenture being
among them -- Woods decided to exfoliate from his public image all
things base, carnal, and even personal.
<div>The Tiger Woods
that was constructed for corporate consumption was spotless and smooth,
an edgeless brand easily peddled to sheikhs and shakers.</div></blockquote></div><blockquote><div>Given
how desperately we want to believe in a human god, it didn't take much
peddling from Team Tiger for us to accept Woods as a modern deity. With
every new tournament victory, every new product endorsement, his
divinity grew. His marketers made him a symbol of tolerance and
brotherhood, and his father, Earl Woods, spoke gibberish about his son being a creature of destiny. Getting married and having children only added to Woods' marketability. I'm divine and monogamous and the
center of a happy nuclear family. And we ate it up. So now that the
"real" Woods has been revealed ... we're embarrassed by the gap between
who we believed Woods to be and who he really is.</div></blockquote>
<div>The
unusually sleazy reality, however true to our darker knowledge of human
nature, is especially disappointing because of the wholesome image
we've been sold for so long. "Modern deity" isn't much of an
overstatement. Even now, the same huge corporate effort that went into
creating the billion-dollar nice-guy persona is hard at work trying to
keep it alive -- because if it dies, too many people stand to lose too
much money. </div>
<div>Think about the heroic efforts to "save"
Woods' marriage. In addition to her prenup -- which only "vests" after
a certain amount of time, apparently the much-wronged wife will receive
a huge payment -- $55 million, according
to some reports -- to stay with him for another two years. That would
explain why she hasn't exited stage right. And the millions reportedly
paid to many among the text-message-wielding, semi-pro women involved
suggests the magnitude of everyone's stake in reconstructing an image
able to hawk corporate goods. </div>
<div>Nor was Woods' behavior unknown -- except to the public. In one instance reporters had photos
of a "transgression"...committed in a church parking lot, no less.
These journalists agreed to keep it secret -- if Tiger posed for a
cover story at Men's Fitness Magazine -- a cover that would
sell huge numbers. Normally Woods wouldn't have been available, since
he had an exclusive contract with Conde Nast's Golf Digest.
With full understanding of the situation, Conde Nast allowed the rival
cover because he too profited from having Tiger remain an icon. </div>
<div>Note
that this industry-wide coverup of Woods' cheating (and apparently his
personal nastiness, arrogance, and general non-cuddly nature) is not a
small, secret plot by dedicated fanatics. Rather, it is a set of
interlocking self-interests manifested in sustaining the pristine image
of this one sports icon to keep cash coming in. </div>
<div>But
enough about Tiger the man, who is, after all, only a golfer. Let's
move on to Tiger the metaphor. Because anyone with four functioning
brain cells gets that if this comprehensive a charade can be sustained
for a decade as Woods and those around him amassed billions, it can
happen elsewhere. It can happen right in front of our eyes. </div>
<div>If
I were watching the public's disgust with the newly revealed Tiger
Woods from an office in the West Wing, I'd be concerned. Because Barack
Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this
nation has seen. His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a
public record or accomplishments, and the public's willing suspension
of critical evaluation of his résumé allowed his handlers and the media
to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow. </div>
<div>Ironically,
the parallels have nothing to do with race. The Obama campaign did
explicitly attempt to borrow the from the then-universal Tiger Woods
appeal to allay any discomfort voters might have had with a mixed-race
politician. They constructed a persona that would make the American
electorate comfortable with a barely-known, first-term senator with a
left wing voting record, a deliberately obscured personal and
professional past, and no traditional qualifications for high office. </div>
<div>After
a year in the spotlight, Barack Obama, hailed as a brilliant man and a
creature of destiny who would heal us all, is himself falling rapidly
to earth. (Thankfully, his family life remains above suspicion.) The
flaws that were airbrushed out of the candidate photos are becoming
glaringly obvious under day-to-day scrutiny of his public performance
in the White House.</div>
<div>And while it doesn't matter if
another athlete is an adulterer, it mattersa lot if the president is
revealed to be an inexperienced, excessively ideological, and weak man
who is naïve about the world and uncomfortable exercising American
power during a time of war. It matters if nothing in his training would
have equipped the president to understand what it takes to stimulate
job growth, or ameliorate a recession, or to end an overseas conflict
successfully. It matters that he is uninterested in the science behind
global warming -- and wishes to use the issue to amass power and
reorder society. It matters that he has no interest in the construction
of policy. </div>
<div>Ultimately, Woods is an exceptional golfer
with a character problem. Barack Obama, by contrast, is not an
exceptional, or even particularly competent, leader. But because so
many politicians, interest groups and factions have an interest in his
continued presence, no one is ready to reveal the man behind the
curtain just yet.</div>
<div>But many voters from both the center
and the far left who believed in the Obama magic are increasingly
dismayed by watching the human god fall to earth. This is a major
problem because, as Shafer notes, the impulse of the betrayed is to
tear their fallen deities to shreds.</div>
</div>
