Jessica, I am a sports fan who’s always liked Tiger far more for his killer instinct and his ability to hit magical shots under pressure and provide drama to an otherwise mundane sport than for his squeaky clean image. So I agree with you that real golf fans don’t give a whit as to whether Elin is in the crowd. (I would guess that she won’t be—it will be circus enough without her there.) And you can bet that with Augusta National having so much sway over the broadcast that the cameras, if Elin is indeed there, won’t be panning from Tiger to Elin and back again as he hovers over a putt or makes a bad shot. (At least not more than once, that is.)

I think I know why Janice "If the wife can forgive, then America can forgive" Min and Mike Lupica had such different notions about the necessity of Elin’s presence. Tiger wasn’t the only one caught with his pants down by the tabloids. Mainstream news outlets were dutifully reporting that “alcohol was not a factor in the crash” without reporting what actually might have been a factor (as if Tiger might have been making a quick run to the store for diapers at 2 a.m. on a holiday weekend) while TMZ had jumped ahead to making Rachel Uchitel a household name. As with the National Enquirer and John Edwards, the tabloid media has shown that it can break important news that the “real” media ignores. That doesn’t mean the gossip rags are ready to cover health care reform, foreign policy, or even the Masters. The tabs have taught the "MSM" a thing or two. But they still have much to learn.

Tags: Elin Nordegren, janice min, the Masters, Tiger Woods comeback, Tiger Woods sex scandal

This list from the Daily Beast of "A list" Buddhists shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did, seeing as it is nothing more than a magazine capitalizing on a recent event (Tiger Woods' Buddhism-laced apology) to show a bunch of glamorous photos of celebrities. But looking through the photo essay, I couldn't help but notice that out of 17 celebrities profiled, only two were born into the faith, and the rest are converts. There are more people on the list who are or were converted by Orlando Bloom than who were born into a cultural tradition that incorporates Buddhism. While Buddhism is uniquely situated as welcoming to converts—many people who practice it do so along other religious traditions—this exclusion of nonconverts still bugs.

I hated the Tiger Woods apology with every fiber of my being, but did see his discussion of Buddhism as a potential silver lining in encouraging Americans to embrace religious diversity and religious freedom. It's probably news to a great many American Christians that Buddhism has moral precepts and practices at all; certainly Brit Hume didn't think so. Woods' apology was a teachable moment, as softie liberals like to say. Way too many Americans accept without question right-wing claims that ours is a "Christian nation," and don't stop to think about how immigration from all over the world has brought an influx of believers of Buddhism and Islam, as well as other, smaller religions. (And don't forget atheism.) But a list like this one misrepresents Buddhism, implying that it's more of a Hollywood trend than a long-standing cultural tradition in many parts of Asia.

When one of your two born Buddhists on the list is Uma Thurman—and only two people (Tiger Woods and Keanu Reeves) have any Asian ancestry at all—you're painting a portrait of Buddhism in America that obscures the reality of Buddhism in America. I'm by no means an expert, but I'm going to guess the majority of Buddhists living in America are not Christian or Jewish converts, but are closer to Woods and his Thai-born mother, i.e., Asian-American. But for some reason, this reality doesn't seem to have much influence on this list at all. You can hear that teachable moment passing, and nobody learned a damn thing.

Tags: buddhism, celebrities, Tabloids

Hanna, given that he’s one of the most famous people in the world, Tiger really has guarded his privacy better than most public figures, so he actually does have some standing to invoke that privacy now that it’s come out he had a mistress, two mistresses, three mistresses—all of whom work in the nightclub industry and all of whom apparently took a photograph of Angelina Jolie to their plastic surgeons and said, “That nose, those lips, and also throw in a set of DD breast implants.” However, since the girlfriend revelations of once-squeaky-clean Tiger have now reached critical mass and he is having thermonuclear bimbo eruptions, whether he wants or deserves privacy, he has to face that it’s gone. For someone with such famous control, did he not think that unless he was very, very generous with his gifts to these women (which means no trinkets from Zales), eventually one or all might realize they could make years' worth of income by selling their story to the tabs? Now, at least, we may see how canny Tiger was before he got married if we learn what kind of pre-nup he had his wife sign. As for whether all this will affect his endorsements, see this alleged note to mistress Rachel Uchitel and be comforted that if Nike drops him he can always endorse Ambien.

Tags: tiger woods, Tiger Woods and privacy, Tiger Woods apology, tiger woods cheating

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?

Tags: tiger woods, Tiger Woods and privacy, Tiger Woods apology

Hanna, New York, where I worked as a prosecutor, has a similar pro-arrest policy in domestic-violence cases to Florida's, and it's a good one. It eliminated what we used to call the "walk around the block" rule—wherein an officer would take the aggressor for a walk to "cool off" and then encourage the combatants to work it out. It's not politically correct to say so, but in some cases, that's not a bad thing to do. It's just that when it is a mistake, it's a very big mistake. The costs of arresting someone and imposing a mandatory restraining order (the violation of which will often result from children being removed from the home—a big incentive for victims who'd like, rightly or wrongly, to give their partners another chance) are outweighed by the very real risk of greater harm.

But there still is—and ought to be—some room for discretion. Tiger Woods isn't a protesting victim who's called the police in, and now—once he's out of danger—wants them to back off. Nor is he someone whose neighbors called in the kind of disturbance that's frightening the block, or whose battered appearance is worrying his family and friends. No witnesses have reported threats or incidents. Those aren't the only things that call for the police to make an arrest against the wishes of the victim, but they're some of the more common ones. Truly, in these circumstances, the police and prosecutors look at three things: Is any one individual in danger, is the public in danger, and is this situation going to come back and bite us later? (That last one's nothing to be proud of, but—see Mike Huckabee—it's both an emotional and a political calculation.)

I just don't see any of those things being issues here. What I do see is a fourth consideration—the "press case" consideration, which goes as follows: Are we going to be accused of doing things differently because there's a celebrity involved? I think your argument is that the police are responding differently—that without Tiger's fancy lawyers, the police would be going after those medical records. I think you're wrong. Pro-arrest policy or not, I think the police would have done the same thing here. They were called for a small one-car accident, they dealt with a small one-car accident. They saw signs of an underlying incident; they put the fear of God into the parties about that underlying incident. They considered—rightly—the three questions and concluded that neither Tiger Woods, the children, nor the public was at risk. Now—with their eyes open and in the absence of any other complaints—it's time for them to move on. If they do anything else, it's going to be in response to that fourth consideration, and when police and prosecutors are forced to spend their resources on a celebrity case for any reason other than public and personal safety, other people—the people who really need that attention—suffer.

I am willing to bet that, right now, there are other cases in that Florida county that need, and are getting, the kind of attention you're talking about. Medical records are being examined, and experts asked if they can legitimately say that there's no way those injuries resulted from "walking into a door." Friends, neighbors, and family members are being pressed to testify even though the victim refuses to do so. Kids are being gently interviewed, and the right people know that the victim can't be allowed to make her partner's bail. And even with all that, it still may not work. Whoever that victim is, she needs all the help she's getting. Tiger Woods can take care of himself. The Florida cops are right to let him.

Tags: tiger woods, Tiger Woods and domestic violence

So Tiger's car crash will cost him $164, plus whatever millions he has had to pay for such fine lawyering. The state troopers say they will stop going after his medical records, and that "no one involved has made any claims of domestic violence." Of course, in Florida no one has to make any claims of domestic violence for domestic violence to be charged, as I wrote in my story yesterday. The state police just have to have "probable cause" of domestic violence. Which takes us back to those medical records.

If those records show wounds consistent with a bash on the head with a golf club, we have probable cause of domestic violence. Without them, we have only Tiger's word that his wife was a rescue angel at the scene of the crash. In the meantime, a new mistress, aptly named "Grubbs," aptly a cocktail waitress, and aptly in possession of some racy texts, has surfaced. Which makes option one—the bash in the head by the jealous wife story—the more likely one, no?

Tags: Jaimee Grubbs, new mistress, tiger woods, Tiger Woods and domestic violence, Tiger Woods and Jaimee Grubbs