By Candance Moore | December 15, 2009 | 3:51 PM EST

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly blasted salacious coverage of the Tiger Woods scandal in the mainstream media, offering assurances that he would refrain from the kind of commentary that often turned into "exploitation."

In a column published last Monday called simply "Tiger Woods," Daly encouraged readers to look in the mirror before judging and "pray for those, like Woods, who are hurting."

Daly explained that he felt compelled to offer a statement, not to repeat juicy stories, but to address an issue hanging on everyone's mind thanks to relentless media coverage:

By Noel Sheppard | December 13, 2009 | 12:00 PM EST

"Saturday Night Live" opened yesterday's show by mocking media for supposedly under-reporting the extra-marital affairs of three politicians, but the sketch completely ignored how the press boycotted the philandering of Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards for nine months.

The program's producers also opted not to include disgraced former Democrat Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer in the group.

Instead, on stage were Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), played by Jason Sudeikis, Sen John Ensign (R-Nev.), played by Bill Hader, and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), played by Will Forte.

Despite the absurdity of suggesting that Ensign and Sanford's respective affairs were under-reported by the press, "SNL" writers completely avoided the fact that the news media, with the exception of the National Enquirer, boycotted Edwards' affair until after Barack Obama had been declared the Democratic presidential nominee (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

By Colleen Raezler | December 11, 2009 | 5:43 PM EST
For Newsweek writer Jenny Block, it's not Tiger Woods who got himself into the trouble he's currently facing, it's his marital vows.  

"What should not be tolerated is hypocrisy - and that's where Tiger's vow of marriage got him into trouble," she argued in a Dec. 10 article. "If you want to be monogamous, great - but don't think you can claim it while you sleep around. It's not fair and, quite frankly, it's exhausting."

Block argued that it's not "surprising" to learn of Woods' affairs because his "entire life is based on winning; on having, doing, and being more ... why on earth would anyone think ‘settling down' was even in his vocabulary?"

But Block has a solution to the problem of adultery.

In what could be an advertisement for open marriages, Block explained that she and her husband "jointly decided that monogamy just wasn't for us" after she had an affair with a woman.

By Tom Blumer | December 11, 2009 | 1:11 PM EST
tiger-woods

I mean really, what right do we have to expect anything from the world's best golfer except the world's best golf?

That was the argument made Wednesday by "Married Jake" of Glamour Magazine at Yahoo's "Shine" site.

The item is called "Why Is Everyone Disappointed in Tiger?" (HT Instapundit). In it, jaded Jake jabs at a substantial portion of the public because, silly us, we thought that the guy was what he and his handlers portrayed.

Here is a graphic cap of Jake's first three paragraphs. The "Related" insert isn't his, and seems more than a little ironic in the circumstances:

By Colleen Raezler | December 11, 2009 | 9:37 AM EST
Tiger Woods' "transgressions" sparked conversations about why men cheat but it took a comedian to pinpoint the basic reason - lack of character.

Comedian Chuck Nice appeared on the "All Guy Panel" during the fourth hour of Thursday morning's "Today" and blasted men who engage in extramarital affairs.

"I've said this before and I will say it again. And no one wants to accept this as an answer, but here is the reason why men cheat. It is a failure of character. That is it," Nice exclaimed.

"End of story. It's a failure of character," he continued. "A man who has the strong, spiritual conviction to say that although I want to do this, I will rely upon a higher power to make sure and strengthen me so that I am able to stand for my vows is the man who will not cheat. Now, that's the end of it."

By Jeff Poor | December 10, 2009 | 4:13 PM EST

There has been a lot of media focus dedicated to the alleged Tiger Woods scandal - even so much that when examined quantitatively, it overshadows more serious issues.

So what will the net result of this media scrutiny be for Tiger? CNBC's sports reporter, Darren Rovell, took a crack at answering that on the Dec. 10 broadcast of "Squawk Box."

"It's 12 straight days in the [New York] Post right now," Rovell said. "Everyday since Nov. 29, there's been a Tiger Woods story. When does it end? We don't know. I'm not going to get into the details of this, but from a business standpoint - how about Donald Trump on 'Extra' yesterday?"

By Julia A. Seymour | December 7, 2009 | 1:44 PM EST

If ABC, NBC and CBS's judgment is correct, Tiger Woods's infidelity is more important than a climate change scandal involving high profile scientists, potentially ‘manipulated' data, and censorship of skeptics among the scientific community.

How much more important? Over 15 times. Despite the impending Copenhagen climate conference, the networks ignored the ClimateGate scandal for 13 straight days on morning and evening news programs. Finally, they got around to mentioning it in four stories during the weekend of Dec. 4 - Dec. 6 as reported on Newsbusters

Even in those climate stories reporters made sure to inform the public that, despite the Climategate revelations, "the science is solid" and "the evidence is overwhelming that man is behind climate change." On ABC, Clayton Sandell mentioned the e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia Dec. 6, but without including any of the disturbing quotes about using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperature, or bullying scientific publications to keep skeptics' work from being peer reviewed.

By Noel Sheppard | December 7, 2009 | 10:27 AM EST

"Saturday Night Live" and NBC are being criticized for a recent skit that poked fun at Tiger Woods' highly-publicized marital problems.

In the sketch, Woods, played by Keenan Thompson, continues to get further beaten up by wife Elin, played by guest host Blake Lively, resulting in more and more injuries in subsequent press conferences.

By Noel Sheppard | December 6, 2009 | 11:31 AM EST

Associated Press headline:

Tiger’s Troubles Widen His Distance From Blacks

‘Two layers of suspicion ... one is the pattern in the race of his partners’

The article that followed labeled the golfer racist not only for "declin[ing] to identify himself as black," but also because of "the race of the women" he's involved with.

On top of this, the AP made the case that America's fascination with Woods's philandering is only because he's cheating with white women (h/t NB reader Matthew Noll):

By Jack Coleman | December 5, 2009 | 11:05 PM EST

You know those creepy videos of schoolchildren singing the praises of Dear Leader in the White House?

Liberal radio host Ed Schultz wants Secret Service agents singing the same tune.

Here's Schultz offering what is arguably the most inane commentary to emerge from the so-called White House party crashers breaching security at the Nov. 24 state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: But I think this president deserves more. I think he deserves the absolute best around him. He doesn't deserve a cheaper cut or any less of an attitude and I would even go so far as to think it might not be bad to have politically like-minded people around the president in the Secret Service who would pledge allegiance to make sure that you go beyond the profession of a security that, you know, hey, that's my guy! That's my guy!
By Brad Wilmouth | December 5, 2009 | 9:10 AM EST

On Friday’s The O’Reilly Factor on FNC, during the regular "Dumbest Things of the Week" segment, host Bill O’Reilly and guest Greg Gutfeld of FNC’s Red Eye, possibly picking up on an item posted the day before on Newsbusters, highlighted ABC’s The View co-host Joy Behar’s recent defense of Tiger Woods as she opined that at least the golf star is not being a "hypocrite" like "one of these pro-marriage, right-wing kind of guys who is anti-gay."

After playing a clip from The View, Gutfeld responded: "I just can't believe she's still single. What a catch. ... This angers me, one, that she says that if you're a conservative you're anti-gay, which is bigotry, her own form of bigotry. Number two, she insults the left. She's saying that the left, because they have no standards, cannot be hypocrites. Therefore, they can get away with things."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the segment from the Friday, December 4, The O’Reilly Factor on FNC:

By Brad Wilmouth | December 3, 2009 | 6:33 PM EST

On the Thursday, December 3, The View, on ABC, co-host Joy Behar found Tiger Woods worthy of being partially defended over his adultery saga – according to her, at least he’s not a "hypocrite" like "these pro-marriage, right-wing, kind of guys who is anti-gay," like former Republican Senator Larry Craig. As the group discussed the latest news of women who have alleged having affairs with the golf star, Behar offer up her defense of Woods, with conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck struggling to rebut her while Behar sang, "La, la, la, la," as Hasselbeck spoke: