When Tiger Woods wrapped his SUV around a neighborhood tree, following his running over a fire hydrant, few if any knew of the damage that would be done to his family in the following days. With what looks likely to have been more than a dozen women, with more being revealed each news cycle, no one is surprised that the wealthiest athlete ever and the most successful golfer in history is experiencing the pain that is his to bear. Causing his children and wife to be put a risk of life, health, reputation, and a stable home, the golfer is depressed, saddened, and to no one's surprise desiring to withdraw to his gated community, and even to his window-shades-drawn home as he seeks to examine his sinful nature, his ability to hurt those he loved, and wonder if his life will ever get put back together again.
Yet for all the agony that Woods' actions have caused his God, wife, children, endorsement clients, and fans his actions pale in comparison to the merciless march the current administration is on to empower themselves, seek to increase the divide between the powerful and the needy, and in the end ruin the lives of families in America today.
If Tiger, as he has wisely chosen, decides to take one, five, even ten years away from the spotlight, away from golf, away from the distractions that he could not resist, his voluntary "unemployment" might impact the level of living that his family would be able to do.
Every day that President Obama pushes for the government take over of health care he injures families by the thousands across America. Every day that President Obama contemplates the idea of spending trillions more of yours and my tax dollars, the less the chances of his being able to reduce the non-voluntary unemployment/under-employment rates that are now drastically impacting one out of every five families in America. (By comparison at President Bush's jobs crisis peak - only one out of every fourteen families were impacted.) And by refusing to seriously address the need for job creation, and by invoking ridiculous and silly propositions like "jobs saved" the President demonstrates a callousness not to one injured spouse, but to an aching nation.
If Tiger puts into practice a principle from my newest book (The Kind of Man Every Man Should Be) and pursues reconciliation, forgiveness, and healthy life choices from this point on--all while agreeing to absolute accountability--he may very well lose his wife and children anyway. Yet at the very least, by making such choices, and by adopting a different path than the one that took him down the road of danger, Tiger can give to his children and possibly even to a former wife a degree of health and sanity. It will not replace what betrayal has taken from them, but his desire to reconcile will produce healthy results.
President Obama, from all appearances, will refuse to admit that his statist view of the world has any flaws in it whatsoever. He will dig in. He will give more speeches. He will possibly even accept more absurd awards on the world stage, even while insulting the host nation who is silly enough to honor him with such acclaim. President Obama refuses to see, what everyone else easily does, that his actions are damaging the future of millions of people, but his stubborn refusal to pivot may damage generations of descendants of those people. The federal spending (and borrowing limits) are breaking records under Obama even with one of his wars drawing down. Yet he wishes to punitively hurt energy companies, prevent the discovery of new sources, and forcibly change behavior of millions of people while taxing them record rates--over an issue that has been cited as non-existent by those who had originally put the ideas forward. Recently those experts even admitted so in e-mails to each other.
Tiger's only chance at redeeming his psyche, his life, and somewhere far down the road his game, is to ultimately choose to be a different person. He must volitionally make better choices, better friends, and cling to the real love of one woman. I personally believe that those tasks are made easier if he also couples those choices with a genuine belief, faith, and trust in God.
President Obama's chances at redemption are actually easier, all he must do is admit the truth, and make a handful of different choices about policy. If he wished to redeem his party's chances of avoiding serious losses in 2010 he would specifically choose to drop the public option in health care, insure the prevention of any federal monies used for abortion, scrap "Cap & Trade", reject the current 2 trillion dollar budget that is headed for his desk, and extend federal tax reductions for small businesses.
None of that would make him a conservative, or even a Republican, but it would demonstrate a genuine humility that took the lives of those he serves seriously.
And while his numbers are falling, and he has slid into a tie with current Republican front-runner Gov. Mike Huckabee, he has not yet suffered enough--nor sensed the suffering of the American people enough (just yet)--for him to take the serious steps that Tiger Woods is being forced to do.
Because of this, "We the People" feel very much like the wife who has been cheated on and even abused by neglect, dishonesty, lies, and trickery.
Thus the only question left to answer is, "Whose love and affection is the nation's President truly pursuing?"
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