Last Thoughts on Tiger

After this, I promise to say no more about Tiger Woods. But don’t deny an old boy his parting shot.

Nike and all the rest of the corporations that pay him obscene amounts of money for his endorsement will probably all forsake him now. Because the few compensatory endorsements he’s sure to be offered by the manufacturers of prophylactics and antifungal crèmes won’t pay nearly so well, he might have to offer on eBay one of the Third World countries Nike gave him.

I honestly don’t get it. Golf is very much the preferred sport of corporate wheelers and dealers, a great many of whom are surely unspeakable dickheads who, learning that Tiger cheated on his gorgeous young wife, felt envy rather than distaste, and wondered how they might cheat more effectively on their own gorgeous young wives. They’re going to stop buying preposterously overpriced Nike products manufactured in Third World sweatshops because of the scandal? I strongly suspect the opposite would be the case, though I understand that Nike might tarnish its glowing reputation by being seen to exploit that realization.

We’re quite comfortable as a society with politicians condemning Special Interests even while welcoming their campaign contributions, but we become all discombobulated when they lie about sex. I’m all in favor of the lives of homophobic gay hypocrites like Larry Craig being ruined when they’re discovered playing footsy in airport restrooms, but must confess that I don’t really see much point in reflexively trying to banish to perdition someone like Elliot Spitzer, the disgraced governor of New York, when he’s discovered to have patronized a whore. Had I liked Bill Clinton a great deal more than I did (centrism sucks), I wouldn’t, in view of his not having made condemnation of extramarital fellatio a cornerstone of his presidency, have minded in the slightest his getting blown by Monica Lewinsky.

I want in office non-hypocrites who are also effective politicians, regardless of how kinky they may be on their own time. If there’s somebody out there who can, for instance, implement universal affordable health care, what do I care what he or she does in the bedroom (or atop the dining room table, or in the shower, or in the back yard (assuming impressionable young neighbors won’t see), and with whom (over the age of consent)? If somebody can revise our insane drug policy, or make legal abortion inviolable, or offer tens of millions of underprivileged children genuinely equal opportunity, it’s A-OK with me if he wears a butt plug to work, or chases chubby, or likes crosseyed Asian women in latex catsuits to use his mouth as an ashtray. As who, if we're being honest with one another, does not?

[From the blog For All in Tents and Porpoises. Enjoy the archive and subscribe at http://johnmendelsohn.blogspot.com]