Obama, Get Your Ass Back to DC & Deal w/ Terrorism

[Religious Dick]

That right there shows you don't know what you're talking about. Libertarians generally don't want the government to inflict anything. They want the government simply to get out of the way.

*snicker*

Is there effectively a difference between legalizing burglary, and making it illegal for a home owner to defend his home? You can take a look at Britain for the answer to that.

There's no such thing as "the government getting out of the way". In any conflict of interests, the government will have to protect one set of interests over the other. In the case of illegal immigration, are these "libertarians" defending the right of property owners to defend their property, or the "right" of illegal aliens to break into the country?

We have the answer to that right here

Whining and making up nonsense because other people want more liberty than you do isn't really debate.

I'm not making up a goddam thing. I can cross-reference and support every claim I've made.

I can play this game too. So presumably, you think the most civil society of all is one where individual liberties do not exist. You support total authoritarian control over every aspect of life?

You already did play that game. Spare me, please.

A bogus description of the nature of the situation. Once again, you're trying to argue against having no restrictions when no one has argued for it.

Indeed? Then what restrictions do you favor, under what conditions?

In any case, your question is flawed. You have clearly assumed libertarian thought begins and ends with markets. Here is yet another hint: Your assumption is wrong. If you had done a modicum of research into this, you would see the libertarian position on things like marriage is that it not the government's business who is and is not married. If one church wants to not allow homosexual marriage, that's okay but not a reason to prevent another church from allowing it. If two people want to enter into a private legal agreement, the extent of the government's involvement would be protection against fraud and the like, i.e. infringements on individual rights. See? Nothing to do with markets at all.[/color]

Better tell that to the libertarians.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/05/27/sadly-the-predictably-lame-arg
http://reason.com/blog/2009/05/27/gay-marriage-debate-mangles-en
http://reason.com/blog/2009/04/03/iowa-supreme-court-strikes-dow

One by Gillespie, one by Mangu-Ward, and one by Sullum. And not a word in any of them about "getting government out of marriage".

Nobody is advocating telling anyone what kind of relationship they can form, and what kind of contracts they can make between themselves.

If you're opposing homosexual marriage, yes, you are.

No, I'm not. You do understand the difference between civil law and contract law, don't you? Marriage is civil law, not contract law. I repeat, there's nothing stopping anyone from forming any relationship they like, and making whatever contract they want between themselves.

That is a very narrow-minded view of marriage.

I certainly hope so! I have this thing about handing out public dispensations without a clearly demonstrated public benefit.

So, presumably, you favor law against all childless marriage. Tell me, if a woman is not capable of becoming pregnant, should she be allowed to marry at all? Presumably, you favor going back to really traditional marriage practices, arranging marriages for for teenagers so they can have more time to produce plenty of offspring. That is the whole point of marriage, right? All that stuff about love and romance and two people choosing to spend their lives together, that is all just a liberal corruption of traditional values, right?[/color]

Presumably, you favor abolishing all laws that don't produce the optimum result 100% of the time, which is pretty much every law on the books.

It is generally agreed that stop signs at intersections reduce accidents. It is also likely true some stop signs have stopped no accidents, and some of them are probably situated such that they've actually caused accidents.

That is not an argument for abolishing stop signs, and even less of an argument for placing them in the middle of corn-fields, where they will certainly stop no accidents at all.

The measure of a law isn't whether it produces a desirable result 100% of the time, but whether they produce a desirable result more often than not. And I hardly see that laws that don't produce a desirable result 100% a justification for creating laws that produce the desired result 0% of the time.

It's called "playing the averages". True, not every heterosexual marriage will produce children. That is not a justification for creating marriages that are guaranteed to produce no children at all.

What you're either missing or deliberately trying to be misleading about is that no one at all is advocating that everyone be allowed to do anything and everything they want. You keep arguing against that, but no one argued in favor of it, not at Reason, not at Cato, and not here at the Three Dead Horses Saloon. So you're arguing against something no one wants. Congratulations on a job almost well done.

But then, you're pretty elusive as to what should be prohibited.

More like you'll make up a lot of nonsense to blow smoke at the discussion and hope no one notices.

I haven't made up anything. I'm perfectly happy to document every claim I've made, time permitting.

They like Ron Paul at Reason. A lot of Reason readers probably voted for him. Reason also likes Jeff Flake. I wonder if any Reason-reading libertarians voted for Jeff Flake. Your party could be in serious trouble already!

Bwahahaha!

http://reason.com/blog/2008/01/11/old-news-rehashed-for-over-a-d
http://reason.com/blog/2008/01/08/thoughts-on-ron-paul
http://reason.com/archives/2008/01/16/who-wrote-ron-pauls-newsletter

What you mean is, they hated him until they realized he had a lot more support in the libertarian community than they did.

And I have a pretty good idea *why* they hate him. It had nothing to do with the newsletters, they've been quite willing to dismiss more egregiously racist rhetoric, notably from the likes of Barack Obama and his associates. No, what they hate him for is what The New Republic hated him for - Ron Paul, whatever you think of his politics, is a patriot. He sees the role of government as looking out for the interests of America and Americans. Not every illegal immigrant that marches in the door, not Israel, not anyone else.

I recognize the Reason crowd very well. Like the communists and the ACLU claiming, "We only want to make America live up to it's ideals", they're quite good at whistling Yankee Doodle and hiding behind quintessentially American values like "freedom" and "capitalism" while pulling out all stops to kick the dominant culture in the nuts. They've been around for years - as communists, as the New Left, and now they've reinvented themselves as libertarians. Thanks, but the last people I people I want running the nation are people who are openly contemptuous of the very concept of nation or national identity. These are people with no particular love for this country, to them a country is just a warm place to take a shit, and if they fuck this one up, they'll just move on to the next one, rinse, lather, repeat. What makes them doubly obnoxious, and dangerous IMHO, is that they've managed to hoodwink a fair number of conservatives and patriotic libertarians into believing that, because they support free markets, that also by definition they're also supporters of America and Americans. Not true - they've made themselves quite clear that they like capitalism not necessarily because it's good for America, but specifically for the potential for unbridled capitalism to be disruptive.

I'll vote for a free-market patriot if I can, but the operative word is "patriot". I happen to like my country. Between a free-market cosmopolitan of the Reason variety, and a patriotic socialist like Dennis Kucinich, I'd vote for the socialist every time.

[Plane]

It worked.

Worked with Romney too. Didn't make it right.

So what does right have to do with it.   Romney lost because he was a Mormon - at least partially. 

Did you know Romney has published a book?

Title "no Apology"   I look for some book signings in New Hampshire..

[Rich]

>>Sarah Palin was interesting as a sideshow to Republicans.  She was nothing more.<<

This is obviously misguided. Before Palin was put on the tickets Republicans were speculating daily about how McCain could satisfy the Conservative base. They knew he would have to bring a VP candidate on board who would satisfy the base. He did just that with Palin. Gov. Palin was more popular with Conservatives than McCain himself and without her he would have done mush worse. McCain didn’t lose because of Bush. He lost because the media had been slandering and libeling Bush for eight years and they were successful in fooling enough people into voting for a man with no qualifications and a Socialist to boot.


>>Anybody who still thinks that the way to get a Republican in the White House is to nominate a strong conservative is deluded.<<

The country club Republicans believed the same. The gave us McCain, never confused with a Conservative Republican. When given the choice between a Conservative (Reagan), or one who claims to be (Bush 41 & 43), the people have always chosen the Conservative.

You'd have to be deliberately obtuse to believe otherwise.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The teabaggers are morons. They will be co-opted by the Republicans or they will simply vanish. 100.000 Teabaggers in the streets would have the same significance as 100,000 zombies in the street.

[Rich]

How enlightening.

 

He is though. His attitude is a reflection of what he's been taught. To hate the average American. Where did he learn it? From his statist rulers. It's evidence of how isolated they are from reality. Given that the majority of Americans oppose government run healthcare, and Osama’s has the lowest approval rating of any president at this point in his presidency in the history of this country, the socialist party is so insulated by it's yes men and sycophants they fail to see it.

So what do they do? They do what this drone does. They attack America. Smart move.

[Stray Pooch]

>>Sarah Palin was interesting as a sideshow to Republicans.  She was nothing more.<<

This is obviously misguided. Before Palin was put on the tickets Republicans were speculating daily about how McCain could satisfy the Conservative base. They knew he would have to bring a VP candidate on board who would satisfy the base. He did just that with Palin. Gov. Palin was more popular with Conservatives than McCain himself and without her he would have done mush worse. McCain didn’t lose because of Bush. He lost because the media had been slandering and libeling Bush for eight years and they were successful in fooling enough people into voting for a man with no qualifications and a Socialist to boot.

No, McCain lost because the Republican party was not behind him fully and the rest of the country had had enough of Republicans.  As I stated, Palin was interesting to Republicans.  Nobody else cared a bit for her.  That's the way it will be in 2012 as well.

>>Anybody who still thinks that the way to get a Republican in the White House is to nominate a strong conservative is deluded.<<

The country club Republicans believed the same. The gave us McCain, never confused with a Conservative Republican. When given the choice between a Conservative (Reagan), or one who claims to be (Bush 41 & 43), the people have always chosen the Conservative.

You'd have to be deliberately obtuse to believe otherwise.

Or just familiar with history.  Reagan wasn't elected because the people wanted a conservative in office.   He was elected because Carter was bitch-slapped by, in succession, inflation, the Ayatollah Khomeni and Ted Kennedy.  People had watched Carter roll over for four years and were sick of it.  Reagan was the ABC candidate.  The Democrats did to Carter in 1980 what the Republicans did to McCain in 2008.  Reagan won in 1984 because he had proven himself as a leader, and the country trusted him.  Bush won on his coat-tails in 1988 and even with the great job he did in Iraq couldn't hold on enough to beat Clinton because Pat Buchanan was more interested in looking tough than seeing a Republican victory.   Bush II won because Gore wasn't sexy enough to overcome how oversexed Bill had been.  And he won again in 2004 because people trusted him a hell of a lot more than Kerry in wartime.  Obama won in 2008 because he was sexy and McCain was not.

American elections are NOT about an informed electorate making careful choices.  It is about a largely uneducated mass of people deciding which of the shrill voices from the left or right they will listen to, and which candidate looks most cool.   The informed voters who actually take the time to understand the issues and the candidates do not make up anywhere near enough of a force to elect a President, and even if they did, we have no choice but the one the image consultants and market analysts decide to present to us.

So I say again, Palin will not win a general election in 2012. 

[Stray Pooch]

Whether or not Palin can get elected will have a lot to do with how pissed off people are with Obama by 2010.

It was said about Reagan that he was too conservative, too outside the mainstream to get elected. All of which usually would have been true. I can't see him having got elected in 1968, 1972 or 1976. But by 1980 people were so fed up with Carter the Republicans could have nominated a lamp post and still handily won.

Of course, whether it's to the Republican's advantage to win the presidency in 2012 is a whole 'nother question. By the end of that president's term, a lot of entitlement spending is going to come due for retiring boomers, and likely by then the Chinese will have cut up our credit card. There are problems that won't go away no matter who's in power. And whoever is in power is going to carry the can for it, fairly or not.

It might very well be a good idea for the Republicans to sit this one out, and leave the Democrats holding the bag for the collapse. My take is that they have nothing to lose by nominating the lady moose hunter. Politicians have overcome bigger obstacles than blowing an interview with Katie Couric. It doesn't matter how much people hate your candidate - as long as they hate the other guy's candidate more.

That's an interesting, if bleak, take on the subject.  And it's true that if Obama turns out to be another Carter (and the scent is familiar) ANY conservative could win in '12.  But we shall see.

[Stray Pooch]

Did you know Romney has published a book?

Title "no Apology"   I look for some book signings in New Hampshire..

I don't think Romney is a good candidate, from a strategy standpoint, either.  I'd love to see an LDS president but a lot of liberals and a lot of conservatives would hate that for different but expediently complementary reasons.

And I can't think of any Mormon that would vote for Mike Huckabee - I certainly won't.

Who's out there besides them?  Could we bring in Colin Powell?  How about Condi?  They were both Bush babies but have a lot going for them and not so much question about intelligence.  Pure speculation, though.  I can't imagine who could effectively lead this party.

[Stray Pooch]

What makes you think she doesn't appeal to independents? What makes you think she wouldn't appeal to Blue Dog Reagan Dems?

If any Republican was going to appeal to Independents it would have been McCain, who was KNOWN (and in some right wing circles hated) for his independence.  But the center voted Dem last cycle.  I'm not sure whether the inclusion of Sarah on the ticket turned off any undecideds but it sure didn't turn them on. 

I have never claimed she is the future of the GOP. What she is, is a viable candidate.

I only meant the immediate future.  I disagree with your last statement.

[Plane]

Did you know Romney has published a book?

Title "no Apology"   I look for some book signings in New Hampshire..

I don't think Romney is a good candidate, from a strategy standpoint, either.  I'd love to see an LDS president but a lot of liberals and a lot of conservatives would hate that for different but expediently complementary reasons.

And I can't think of any Mormon that would vote for Mike Huckabee - I certainly won't.

Who's out there besides them?  Could we bring in Colin Powell?  How about Condi?  They were both Bush babies but have a lot going for them and not so much question about intelligence.  Pure speculation, though.  I can't imagine who could effectively lead this party.

A black person has a lessor prejudice problem than an LDS member?

Would you cheer up?

[Stray Pooch]

A black person has a lessor prejudice problem than an LDS member?

Would you cheer up?

LOL!  Well, in this day and age that may well be true, Plane.  Unlike African-Americans, who have earned their civil rights through decades of persecution and dignified and not-so-dignified struggle, Latter Day Saints aren't really looked on as victims - and compared to blacks shouldn't be.  Most of what people know about Mormons is polygamy, Brigham Young and guys knocking on their doors at inconvenient times.  (in fact, a surprising amount of people get us confused with the Jehovah's witnesses or other religions).  But the prejudices against Mormons that would affect Romney (and did) are that Evangelicals and others on the religious right, a huge force in the Republican party still, think we are a devil-worshipping, non-Christian cult.  On the left, we are being especially singled out for our opposition to Gay Marriage.  Those who are old enough also remember our opposition to the ERA and the prohibition against Black priesthood holders.  So those prejudices are actually based on our social application of our beliefs, which is actually a legitiimate beef.  Between the two bigotries, I prefer the left side.  At least theirs is politically relevent.

[BT]

If any Republican was going to appeal to Independents it would have been McCain, who was KNOWN (and in some right wing circles hated) for his independence.

Like Palin didn't unseat a sitting GOP Governor. And how did she do it, by challenging the status quo.

[sirs]

What makes you think she doesn't appeal to independents? What makes you think she wouldn't appeal to Blue Dog Reagan Dems?

If any Republican was going to appeal to Independents it would have been McCain, who was KNOWN (and in some right wing circles hated) for his independence. 

I beg to differ, Pooch, as much as I my hate doing so with you.  Hated NOT for his "indepedence", near as much as his lack of conservative credentials, while trying to lay claim to being a Reagan-like Conservative.  Now, you probably could pull some examples of his conservative legislative efforts.  But I could likely match that with an equal amount of moderate, when not liberal legislative efforts.  Don't even get me started on his class warfare rhetoric in 2000, or CFR.  Point being, he was "all over the ball park", ideologically, when his campaign was sputtering in 2008.  Palin gave him some psuedo conservative cred, while still being a McCain-like maverick. 

And that's PRECISELY what this country is in need of.  A candidate/politican with solid conservative credibility, that can make an effort at standing up to lobbiyests & Congress.....to say no to the hard left (AND hard right), but to govern with an effort reinvigarate fiscal responsibility & national pride.  To facilitate conservative ideals that are the foundation of this country and the constitution     *cue the band to start playing God Bless America*     

[Universe Prince]

Is there effectively a difference between legalizing burglary, and making it illegal for a home owner to defend his home? You can take a look at Britain for the answer to that.

There's no such thing as "the government getting out of the way". In any conflict of interests, the government will have to protect one set of interests over the other.

Once again, you're trying to confuse the issue. No one here is arguing for the elimination of laws or of government. And no, the government does not have to protect one set of interests over another in any conflict of interests. There are many where the government has no business sticking its dirty nose. Performance enhancing drug use policy in sports, for example.

In the case of illegal immigration, are these "libertarians" defending the right of property owners to defend their property, or the "right" of illegal aliens to break into the country?

We have the answer to that right here

No you don't. We do, however, have an example of you making things up. No one argued, even at your link, for a "right" to break into anything. In general what Reason argues for, regarding immigration, is that immigration law should be less restrictive, which would result in more people being able to come here legally.

I'm not making up a goddam thing. I can cross-reference and support every claim I've made.

Yes you are. Like the above example, you've repeatedly made up some either/or comparison that has no basis in reality. And if, as in the above example, that is what you call supporting your claims, then, no, I do not believe you can support them at all.

Then what restrictions do you favor, under what conditions?

At last a real question. I favor the protection of individual rights. Which means I favor laws and law enforcement that protects individual rights. Laws against murder, theft, fraud. Laws that protect the individual's right to own property and to protect his privately owned property. Laws that protect the individual's right free speech and freedom of religion (or of no religion as the case may be), et cetera. So a more direct answer would be I favor restrictions on the infringement of individual rights by other individuals and by other entities like corporations and even governments, local, state and federal. Which means, I'm not arguing for allowing anyone to do anything anytime anywhere, not arguing for "absolute liberty" (whatever that is). And as best I can tell, no one at Reason argues for that either. They're not even anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard or the folks at LewRockwell.com who want to do away with government.

One by Gillespie, one by Mangu-Ward, and one by Sullum. And not a word in any of them about "getting government out of marriage".

And not a word in any of them about markets either. And also none of them are advocating using the government to impose anything on anyone. The articles are, in point of fact, discussing the way the conflict over homosexual marriage is playing out. None of them are actually policy advocacy pieces.

You do understand the difference between civil law and contract law, don't you? Marriage is civil law, not contract law. I repeat, there's nothing stopping anyone from forming any relationship they like, and making whatever contract they want between themselves.

Marriage, in our society, is a legal contract between two parties. In most places in this country, marriage between people of the same sex is not allowed. Therefore there is something stopping some people from making a marriage contract between themselves.

So, presumably, you favor law against all childless marriage. Tell me, if a woman is not capable of becoming pregnant, should she be allowed to marry at all? Presumably, you favor going back to really traditional marriage practices, arranging marriages for for teenagers so they can have more time to produce plenty of offspring. That is the whole point of marriage, right? All that stuff about love and romance and two people choosing to spend their lives together, that is all just a liberal corruption of traditional values, right?

Presumably, you favor abolishing all laws that don't produce the optimum result 100% of the time, which is pretty much every law on the books.

It is generally agreed that stop signs at intersections reduce accidents. It is also likely true some stop signs have stopped no accidents, and some of them are probably situated such that they've actually caused accidents.

That is not an argument for abolishing stop signs, and even less of an argument for placing them in the middle of corn-fields, where they will certainly stop no accidents at all.

The measure of a law isn't whether it produces a desirable result 100% of the time, but whether they produce a desirable result more often than not. And I hardly see that laws that don't produce a desirable result 100% a justification for creating laws that produce the desired result 0% of the time.

It's called "playing the averages". True, not every heterosexual marriage will produce children. That is not a justification for creating marriages that are guaranteed to produce no children at all.

You are avoiding the questions. If a woman is not capable of becoming pregnant, should she be allowed to marry at all? She would be in a marriage guaranteed to produce no children at all. Is your opinion that the point of marriage is to create children, or is that not your opinion?

They like Ron Paul at Reason. A lot of Reason readers probably voted for him. Reason also likes Jeff Flake. I wonder if any Reason-reading libertarians voted for Jeff Flake. Your party could be in serious trouble already!

Bwahahaha!

http://reason.com/blog/2008/01/11/old-news-rehashed-for-over-a-d
http://reason.com/blog/2008/01/08/thoughts-on-ron-paul
http://reason.com/archives/2008/01/16/who-wrote-ron-pauls-newsletter

What you mean is, they hated him until they realized he had a lot more support in the libertarian community than they did.

And I have a pretty good idea *why* they hate him. It had nothing to do with the newsletters, they've been quite willing to dismiss more egregiously racist rhetoric, notably from the likes of Barack Obama and his associates. No, what they hate him for is what The New Republic hated him for - Ron Paul, whatever you think of his politics, is a patriot. He sees the role of government as looking out for the interests of America and Americans. Not every illegal immigrant that marches in the door, not Israel, not anyone else.

Which might be a valid argument if not for the fact that it is entirely wrong. Reason wrote about Ron Paul before the scandal concerning his newsletters in late 2007/early 2008. And what Reason wrote about Ron Paul was generally positive. Nick Gillespie even notes this in the first sentence of the article of his for which you gave a link. And much of their writings about Ron Paul are clearly in admiration of the man. (http://reason.com/blog/2003/01/13/identity-crisis, http://reason.com/blog/2006/07/10/two-cheers-for-ron-paul, http://reason.com/blog/2008/04/07/dr-no-coverage) He was even named one of Reason's 35 Heroes of Freedom. So, no, they did not hate him, nor do they hate him now.

Thanks, but the last people I people I want running the nation are people who are openly contemptuous of the very concept of nation or national identity.

If that link is the best you've got, you're going to have to work a lot harder to prove your point. That Gillespie likes poetry by an American poet who wrote poetry about the history of and leading up to the founding of the U.S.A. is hardly, if at all, indication that Gillespie and/or Reason in general are contemptuous of the concept of nation and/or national identity.

These are people with no particular love for this country, to them a country is just a warm place to take a shit, and if they fuck this one up, they'll just move on to the next one, rinse, lather, repeat. What makes them doubly obnoxious, and dangerous IMHO, is that they've managed to hoodwink a fair number of conservatives and patriotic libertarians into believing that, because they support free markets, that also by definition they're also supporters of America and Americans. Not true - they've made themselves quite clear that they like capitalism not necessarily because it's good for America, but specifically for the potential for unbridled capitalism to be disruptive.

I will now wait for you to document/cross-reference/support all of this, because frankly, what you've written there looks like little more than ferret excrement.

I'll vote for a free-market patriot if I can, but the operative word is "patriot". I happen to like my country. Between a free-market cosmopolitan of the Reason variety, and a patriotic socialist like Dennis Kucinich, I'd vote for the socialist every time.

Yes, I am sure you would. You seem to have no philosophical commitment to ideas of freedom or liberty. Your philosophical anchor seems to be excessive nationalism. Country first, before liberty, before rights, before human beings. It is a position I find untenable, callous and fearful. Needless to say, I am not persuaded by your arguments on its behalf.

[Stray Pooch]

What makes you think she doesn't appeal to independents? What makes you think she wouldn't appeal to Blue Dog Reagan Dems?

If any Republican was going to appeal to Independents it would have been McCain, who was KNOWN (and in some right wing circles hated) for his independence. 

I beg to differ, Pooch, as much as I my hate doing so with you.  Hated NOT for his "indepedence", near as much as his lack of conservative credentials, while trying to lay claim to being a Reagan-like Conservative.  Now, you probably could pull some examples of his conservative legislative efforts.  But I could likely match that with an equal amount of moderate, when not liberal legislative efforts.  Don't even get me started on his class warfare rhetoric in 2000, or CFR.  Point being, he was "all over the ball park", ideologically, when his campaign was sputtering in 2008.  Palin gave him some psuedo conservative cred, while still being a McCain-like maverick. 

And that's PRECISELY what this country is in need of.  A candidate/politican with solid conservative credibility, that can make an effort at standing up to lobbiyests & Congress.....to say no to the hard left (AND hard right), but to govern with an effort reinvigarate fiscal responsibility & national pride.  To facilitate conservative ideals that are the foundation of this country and the constitution     *cue the band to start playing God Bless America*     

Feel free to differ whenever you wish, sirs.  I like to think that one of the hallmarks of the right is the ability to disagree among ourselves without resorting to political civil war.  This, in fact, is one of the reasons the current internal polarization within my own party is so distressing to me.  It is so reminiscent of the Democratic party tradition.

But I would say that what you describe as a "lack of conservative credentials" and being politically "all over the ballpark" is precisely what made him an independent.  McCain did, frequently, stand up against the far right in our own party.  Many described him as a RINO, a term I detest, because he did not toe the line.  Personally I had respect for the man because of his service, his political courage and his willingness to flout the party and the electorate for what he believed in.  My only problem with him as a candidate was that I knew teh Republicans would beat themselves up trying to stop his campaign and he wouldn't be a sexy as Obama.  Frankly, I think he would have beaten Hilary hands down.

This country is far too closely and evenly divided between those who vote blue and those who vote red.  Nobody can get the White House because of an extreme position, because the cener will shy away from them instinctively.   Nobody with any baggage can get elected nowadays because of the ubiquitous nature of the media, the internet and the pundits.  And nobody can afford to be looked upon as having failings because the Tiger Woods story has only so much more interest before the bloodthirsty mobs need another victim.