Harris on Hume on Woods

Have you seen this clip where Brit Hume advises Tiger Woods to convert from Buddhism to Christianity?

Plenty of people with whom I usually agree are defending Hume. But I agree with Althouse, this is weird.

Seems to me Brit is doing one of two things: he's either evangelizing (come to Christ for forgiveness of sins) or he's offering some sort of PR advice (Come to Christ for forgiveness of fans).

I'm fine with evangelizing in the proper venue but Hume is paid to give political analysis. What's good for Wood's soul is a personal digression and not really relevant. It's an imposition. (Maybe all evangelizing is an imposition.) It's also weird. I wouldn't go to court and offer legal analysis based on the Book of Mormon, even if I thought it had some bearing on certain policies. Why is Hume offering political analysis based upon his religious beliefs?

If what Hume's suggesting, however, is Woods should convert to Buddhism to save his career, then that is truly crass. People should adhere to religion because they believe in it's teachings and principles, not for PR.

Hume apparently had a evangelical conversion after his son committed suicide, so I'm guessing this is evangelizing, which is less strange, but still out of place.

Lost in the Public Woods

Conventional wisdom says that what happens on the streets adjacent to Tiger Wood's house stays in Tiger Wood's house. That is, whether Tiger crashed his car and his wife heroically tried to pull him out of the back window of his SUV (instead of the windshield, driver's side or passenger side windows or doors) to save him or she was actually trying to knock his head off with a golf club because he had an affair is none of our business.

But I think it is our business. It's our Nike, Buick, Gillette, General Mills business. Sort of.

Tiger has been good about not thinking that, because he is really good at golf,  he is also really good at politics, and I appreciate that. Still, he, like most great sports athletes, has profited, not from his golf winnings as much as his endorsements. He's traded on his fame, and it made him a lot of money. I don't really think it's fair for him or for any other celebrity to use the public's interest in their lives and personalities to make money when it's convenient, only to later argue that the public should stay out of their private life when the public scrutiny is inconvenient.