Brit Hume gets really weird even for Fox News, urges Tiger Woods’ conversion to Christianity

We evangelize, you decide:

Whether he can recover as a person depends on “his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

Well, first of all: I’m certain that Brit Hume has studied Buddhism deeply.

Second of all: Weird as it is to see a newsman urging religious conversion on a news analysis program — and hey, maybe this incident reveals how deeply weird and even distorting to our national dialogue it’s been that we spent much of December obsessing about Tiger Woods — I think, oddly, Brit was trying to be nice, sincere and heartfelt in what he did. I’ve spent my time around evangelical Christians. They never think they’re being intrusive into a private sphere of your life when they urge Jesus on you; they just don’t want you to go to Hell. Which is nice … but still intrusive, despite the intentions.

And in the context of a supposedly secular news analysis program it’s distinctly unhelpful. If you figure that the Christian God is running the entire universe, and you feel free to make that idea the crux of your news commentary, why wouldn’t it become the basis of all the rest of your news analysis? I understand Iran is moving closer to having nuclear weapons — but that’s OK, John, because Jesus will return and take the believers to heaven with him. Publicizing your faith in a news analysis context doesn’t really illuminate anything for your viewers, except alert them to the fact of your faith.

I don’t begrudge Brit Hume his Christian faith, nor his right to proclaim it publicly. Certainly, it’s something that should appeal to much of the Fox News demographic. (Bill Kristol, of the Jewish faith, might feel a smidge uncomfortable participating in a televised revival meeting, but what the hey?) This isn’t so much troubling as it is … deeply weird.

Eugene Robinson’s problem with Tiger Woods’ adultery: A lack of diversity

I love Eugene Robinson, but his column this morning on Tiger Woods’ marital scandals plays like a conservative stereotype of liberal thinking:

If adultery is really about the power and satisfaction of conquest, Woods’s self-esteem was apparently only boosted by bedding the kind of woman he thought other men lusted after — the “Playmate of the Month” type that Hugh Hefner turned into the American gold standard.

But the world is full of beautiful women of all colors, shapes and sizes — some with short hair or almond eyes, some with broad noses, some with yellow or brown skin. Woods appears to have bought into an “official” standard of beauty that is so conventional as to be almost oppressive.

So the problem with Tiger Woods bedding a lot of young women is that they’re not diverse enough?

We’re at that point in the Woods scandal where the news is so pervasive that a lot of smart people feel like they’ve got to weigh in or be left behind in the cultural conversation — it would be like trying to pretend Monica Lewinsky didn’t exist in 1998. But there’s a danger for those smart people in that trying to say something smart about something very silly, they’ll just end up looking silly themselves. I’m not sure Robinson gets all the way there, but he comes close.

Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants. Sometimes other parts want what those other parts want. It really is possible to overthink these things.

Tiger Woods’ prenup, gay marriage and the law

I was going to avoid commenting on the Tiger Woods scandal. But this story about Tiger’s prenup, combined with yesterday’s rejection of gay marriage in New York, made me reconsider.

Seriously. Get a load of the prenup:

The Daily Beast has learned exclusively that the beleaguered golfer is negotiating an immediate $5 million payout to his wife—and revising her prenup to give her as much as $55 million more to stay with him two more years.

“The links legend’s spouse is reportedly being paid a hefty seven-figure amount—immediately transferred [sic] into an account she alone controls—to stick with her husband,” Zwecker wrote. “At this point, the couple needed to remain married for 10 years in order for Woods’ wife to collect a splitsville settlement of $20 million. I’m being told that time frame has been shortened—and the dollar amount increased ‘substantially.’”

The lawyer familiar with the couple’s negotiations told The Daily Beast that Tiger also has agreed to shorten the original prenup to seven years from the date of marriage, meaning it will vest in another two.

So: Tiger cheated on his wife, probably multiple times. He’s paying her millions of dollars to stay with him. They’re in legal negotiations over financial terms of their continued marriage. If she stays with him another couple of years, she’ll be “vested” — you don’t usually hear that term outside of 401(k) hearings — and receive the full amount of a settlement.

I’ll grant you, this is an extreme case. What Woods and his wife call “marriage” looks more like a cold and calculated contractual business partnership from the outside. In the eyes of the law, that’s essentially what marriage is: A contract between two people that gives them certain rights as a couple and responsibilities to the other. There’s nothing mystical or sacred about it from the state’s viewpoint.

But the extremity of Tiger’s case helps clarify, a bit, what the gay marriage fight is all about: The right of two people of the same sex to make a contract with each other. Legally, it’s not about “sanctity” or “sacredness” or any of that stuff because the law doesn’t — shouldn’t — concern itself with such things. Certainly, it appears, Tiger Woods hasn’t. Yet his contract with his wife receives the respect of the law. It’s all a bit bewildering.