de.tech.ting

Image by Dom Furore/Woods Family via Getty via Daylife

I’ve been following the Tiger Woods real-time twitter stream on TweetDeck, and it’s a mix of speculation:

RT @bdei80 What is the deal with Tiger Woods? What is he trying to hide?

support:

RT @israeljsmith  I love Tiger Woods response to all the hype around his minor car accident….no response! More stupid “news” should be dealt with this way!

and jokes:

RT @FantasyFreaks: “What do Tiger Woods & Baby Seals have in common?…They both get clubbed by Swedes.”

What it is not is dwindling.   Here’s why:
9 reasons  Tiger Woods is screwed

1. He crashed into a fire hydrant… and a tree… in a Cadillac SUV… just outside his driveway… going less than 30 mph… at 2:30 am. Umm.  What?

2. His wife was running around with a golf club. The irony, the metaphor…that visual alone will keep this story going.  Are his golf clubs just lying around the house?  Are they by the front door in an umbrella stand?  How did she get the golf club, and which club was it?

3. After the accident, his agent quickly issued a statement saying Tiger’s fine.  Too quickly. That was clearly a wishful attempt to do early damage control.  Points for trying but that shot backfired, and the initial “He’s fine'” soon seemed ike a desperate attempt at cover-up.

4.  His alleged mistress hired super-attorney Gloria Allred. Not only did she hire her but she immediately flew out to LA to meet with Gloria, and there was even a caught-on-camera  airport arrival hug.  For those of you who don’t remember, Gloria Allred represented Nicole Brown Simpson’s family during OJ’s murder trial.  She also represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment case against former president Bill Clinton.   And she wrote a letter to California’s Child Protective Services asking them to investigate the safety of Michael Jackson’s children.   That Gloria Allred.   If there is nothing to the allegations, why would Rachel rush into the arms of such a high-profile lawyer?

5. He’s refusing to talk to the police. If there’s a simple explanation wouldn’t you just talk to the cops, hold a press conference,  tweet about it, appear on Jimmy Kimmel, end the speculation and move on?  Sure you would.  Tiger’s silent treatment means there is no simple explanation.  And that means it’s complicated, which brings us back to his wife Elin, Rachel Uchitel, the golf club and the National Enquirer story.

6. His statement was oh-so-carefully phrased. “This is a private matter.” See number 5.   If this was something to make light of and toss away, he would have done so.  Instead, Tiger’s statement only emphasizes the severity of the situation.

7.  The National Enquirer is supremely confident of this story. That’s always a bad sign. They cite polygraphs, on-the-record sources, and a thorough investigation. All to show this is not a frivolous story, and this is not malicious disregard for the truth (an early strike against possible libel or defamation charges).  The last time the National Enquirer was so sure of itself?  When they nailed John Edwards for nailing Rielle Hunter.  We all remember how that went down.

8. Tiger Woods is smug. Like John Edwards,  a smug guy with an attractive and supportive wife taking up with a wacky broad.  People don’t like smug.  They don’t like A-Rod, Roger Clemens, Brett Favre,  Mark Sanford, and even Barack Obama. In fact, Tiger Woods is the Barack Obama of golf.  Or maybe Barack Obama is the Tiger Woods of politics.   Smug is part of what makes athletes and politicians successful in their competitive arenas, but it makes everyone else feel inferior.  As petty as it may be, people like to take the smug ones down a peg or twenty.    You might be the best golfer in the world, you may be a kajillionaire, but you’ll be sleeping on the couch just like the next guy.

9. This wasn’t supposed to happen to Tiger Woods. Smug or not, Tiger is a self-made superman.  No steroids, no cheating (on the golf course, at least), just years of focus and practice to hone his unbelievable talent.  We all remember the video of a 2 year old  Tiger on the Mike Douglas show with his dad.  We watched Tiger grow up, cross boundaries, step through media quagmires to come out on the other side as a respected family man.   He now says  “I’m human and I’m not perfect.”  Well, it’s a little too late for that.  If Tiger Woods implodes, what heroes do we have left?   This crack in his stoic image leaves us wondering: What makes Tiger tick?   And if Tiger — who seemed to have everything — can’t hold it together, what hope is there for the rest of us?

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