Tiger Woods has written a very moving and heartfelt plea “for some simple, human measures of privacy .” It’s the same thing politicians always ask for in such moments and it always brings up the same question for me: Are you allowed to use domestic props-wife, children, dogs-to manufacture a public persona, and then demand privacy when it turns out there’s more to the picture? Tiger has not won his endorsement deals merely because he is a great golfer. He has always traded in on his love for his father and his beautiful family to carefully guard the image of himself as a clean, “boring” guy, as he likes to put it. Europeans don’t make this bargain. They don’t demand uncomplicated home lives from their icons, so a cocktail waitress from Vegas does not change anything.
Maybe no one is surprised that Tiger has been having affairs. Maybe no one is outraged. But can he really ask us not to be interested?
