Tiger's Lilies

This month's roaring scandal concerns the world's greatest golfer, Tiger Woods, and his apparently insatiable desire for the intimate companionship of nubile blondes not his wife.  Our Gentle Readers are, we trust, already sufficiently familiar with the extracurricular activities of Mr. Woods, as proclaimed from every TV and magazine for the last few weeks.  Not since Chappaquiddick has a car accident led to such earthshaking consequences for an individual of world renown.

Speaking of Chappaquiddick, we cannot help but notice the difference in reaction among the commentariat.  The question of the moment revolves around whether Mr. Woods should be drawn and quartered for his adulterous libertinism, or whether boiling in oil might be more appropriate.

Dare we mention, also, his shocking lack of politically-correct taste in drawing his bedmates exclusively from the ranks of the fair in face?  Not a sister to be found among them!  As the satirical and parodic email going the rounds has it:

"Why is it that a man who calls himself black can't bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?" said Sharpton, speaking to a group of supporters in Harlem. "What does it say to young black girls everywhere when you pass them over? Shame on you, Tiger Woods. What would your daddy say?"

Far be it from us to question Woods' taste in the fairer sex - he having vastly more experience than we - but whither the national opprobrium?

So far as we are aware, all of Tiger's lilies were over the legal age of consent, entered upon their relationship with him (however brief or otherwise) entirely willingly, and if reports are to be believed, even found it surprisingly satisfying:

Porn star Holly Sampson, 36, bragged this May on the Internet talk show "Naughty America" that she slept with Woods at his 2004 bachelor party. "He picked me to go into the room," Sampson crowed, according to a video unearthed by TMZ. "I have to say he was really good."

Well, she ought to know...

The point is, have we not been told for decades that it's nobody's business what goes on between consenting adults?  Everybody involved did whatever they did entirely willingly.  Nobody was abused, assaulted, coerced, or harmed in any way.

Where Mary Jo Kopechne found herself trapped beneath the icy waters of a frozen stream to suffocate slowly in the dark, these girls need fear nothing worse than a hefty paycheck the moment The View or Jay Leno can make room for them in the schedule.  Yet while Tiger's entire future career hangs in the balance, Ted Kennedy's run as both senator and lothario suffered barely a hiccup and continued uninterrupted for decades.

"What about the wife?" you shout.  Well, what about the wife?  Have we not, as a society, decided that marriage means nothing - and, for the rich and powerful, even less?

There was a time when people took the words "Til death do you part" with all due gravity; any man who willfully broke his marriage vows was looked upon as a scoundrel and drummed out of polite society.  Today, how often do we hear the weak excuse, "We're just not in love anymore" as a couple parts to seek greener grass by playing the field elsewhere?  Why do we pretend to expect fidelity or exclusivity of Tiger Woods when we refuse to demand it of ourselves?

To a man and woman, there is not one member of the media now pummeling Tiger who truly believes in the sanctity of marriage; it's impossible to know, but odds are that each and every one of them has betrayed their own spouse (if any) in much the same way as he has.

Yet for all that hip moderns pooh-pooh the repressive mores of a bygone society, we all know deep down that marriage really is supposed to be forever - not just until you tire of a lover, but for life.  The collapse of American marriage has destroyed a generation of American children with an ever-decreasing number growing up with both biological parents despite ample evidence of the tremendous increase in poverty and abuse found in broken or single-parent homes - a term which we still use while accepting the behavior that leads to it.

If Elin Nordegren, on her wedding day, had the right to expect that Tiger would be "hers and hers only 'til death us do part," so do all of America's wives and husbands.  If not - if, truly, modern wedding vows are just so much meaningless archaic blather - then we have no right to condemn Tiger Woods for doing what, we suppose, anyone else with his advantages and opportunities would do.  Right?

There has always been adultery; there always will be.  There has always been murder, too, and yet as a society the mere fact of murder's existence doesn't stop us from condemning and punishing killers.  Yes, a lot of marriages are troubled; yes, a lot of people have failed to develop the most rudimentary self-control to remain faithful to their spouses.  That's no excuse - and the condemnation should be equal for all.

Alas, as with so many things in modern America, the political provides a free pass.  For years and years, the feminists of the world lauded Ted Kennedy even as he carried on with behavior that should have disqualified him from the respect of any woman, never mind political support.  Tiger Woods, though, has seemed to stand for traditional morality and discipline; now that the truth is revealed, he has no leftist protectors.

Poor Tiger!  If only he'd kissed up to the Racist Reverends and staunchly promoted abortion!  Had he taken those elementary precautions, Elin Nordegren, the mother if Tiger's child, would stand condemned as an old-fashioned prude, and Tiger would be off to his next triumph on the shoulders of his admirers.