I really don’t have any head shak­ing, fin­ger wag­ging, or guilt trips to lay down about Tiger’s recent “issue.” I know things hap­pen. Tiger, like all of us, is human. He and his fam­ily deserve space to work this out. I do not feel like his family’s drama unrav­el­ing in pub­lic is the price he pays for being a celebrity ath­lete. I sim­ply reject that notion.

In his state­ment, Tiger wrote:

But no mat­ter how intense curios­ity about pub­lic fig­ures can be, there is an impor­tant and deep prin­ci­ple at stake which is the right to some sim­ple, human mea­sure of pri­vacy. I real­ize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of pri­vacy is one that must be pro­tected in mat­ters that are inti­mate and within one’s own fam­ily. Per­sonal sins should not require press releases and prob­lems within a fam­ily shouldn’t have to mean pub­lic confessions.

Truth. I really have no appetite for dig­ging into the tur­moil of fam­i­lies going through some­thing like this. The media (not just so-called tabloids) is com­pletely devoid of com­pas­sion. Star­ing into the eyes of a betrayed spouse, look­ing for fis­sures in her/his soul. Come on…we all know it’s there, why pry? (Rewind to the sit­u­a­tion with Gov. Mark San­ford. Hurt has no party or reli­gious affil­i­a­tion.) I’m fully aware it’s a supply-and-demand sit­u­a­tion, though. Unfor­tu­nately, a large seg­ment of the pub­lic eats this stuff up–including ESPN view­ers. There were ESPN reports camped out in Florida right along side Hol­ly­wood gos­sip and tabloid reporters.

Though , I take this whole thing seri­ously and respect it as a pri­vate mat­ter, I did find some­thing rather humor­ous in Tiger’s state­ment. He said,

“Although I am a well-known per­son and have made my career as a pro­fes­sional ath­lete, I have been dis­mayed to real­ize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”

Say what now?!?

What planet has this fool been liv­ing on that he didn’t real­ize the full extent of tabloid scrutiny? Come on Tiger, I know you’re smart. You went to Stan­ford for good­ness sake. Maybe it’s true the celebri­ties live in a bit of a social bub­ble because they don’t just “hang out” like most us do. Nev­er­the­less, even if you’re not run­ning the streets (well…apparently Tiger was, but more gen­er­ally), most peo­ple know about the bruis­ing nature of tabloid jour­nal­ism. Tiger has to have some other celebrity friends that have been under the micro­scope. Still, how is her insu­lated from this? Come to think of it, with Tiger’s money I doubt he’s shop­ping at the neigh­bor­hood Pub­lix where the check out aisles are lit­tered with trashy tabloids. That is, if he even shops for gro­ceries. I think the set for those body wash com­mer­cials are the clos­est he’s come to being in a tra­di­tional super­mar­ket. Yeah I know, celebri­ties are peo­ple, too, and they shop at reg­u­lar stores just like every­one else. Uh huh. Ok. Imag­ine Whole Foods is the low­est Tiger’s stooped for gro­ceries. Have you ever seen the pub­li­ca­tions in the check out at Whole Foods?

I feel smarter just wait­ing in line. That is, until I have to pay a king’s ran­som for what’s in my lit­tle green cart. Then, I feel violated.

As the phrase goes, “At the end of the day…” I hope Tiger and his wife can sort out their issues. Even if they can’t, I really don’t need to know about it. As an aside, I sus­pect we’ll be hear­ing about is Tiger los­ing some endorse­ments. Can­didly, I’d be shocked if it doesn’t hap­pen. I just hope that all those peo­ple media who enjoyed the Tiger ride, and ele­vated their jour­nal­is­tic careers on his shoul­der, don’t now take three steps back to watch him free fall into a face plant.