Anyone who has ever been caught with his pants down knows it's easier to look up to Jesus than it is to squat down into a lotus position. So Brit Hume, Fox News commentator and moonlighting theologian, is urging the troubled Tiger Woods to mend his skirt-chasing and om-chanting ways by embracing Christ. On Fox News Sunday, Hume preached that

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith... He is 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. 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.'"

 Hume knows a thing or too about redemption. After all, he is a recovering sinner himself, having once been divorced and -- even worse -- a liberal. But the now-remarried conservative has seen the light. If Woods would accept Jesus Christ as his lord and savior, Hume and the entire Christian world would accept this glorious golfer and forgive his swinging tendencies.

Tiger, you'll be happy to know that it's not only politicians who get to sin with one hand and cross themselves with the other. You won't be the odd man out if you convert. You would be in great company, joining a brotherhood of athletes whose fouls meet no penalties. You may have lost some endorsements, but you can represent the best brand ever!

I hereby now induct thee into the Christian-sinner-Sports Hall of Fame! Where you will break bread with:

• Carl Everett. This former Major League outfielder won't be outsmarted by the dinosaurist agenda: "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve." Everett continues his exacting biblical exegesis explaining,"The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex." Touche. Everett strikes out the alleged "evidence" of dinosaur fossils, which he dismisses as "made by man." He does, however concede that man may have walked on the moon: "it's possible." So Christ forgives him when he gets into shouting matches, grabs his crotch, nose-bumps, says he thrives on being hated, and is charged with child abuse.
• Jeff Gordon. NASCAR star and Winston Cup winner, "is to stock-car racing as Tiger Woods is to golf: young, handsome, fiercely competitive -- and putting his sport in the spotlight." But unlike Woods, Gordon spends every night before a race studying the Bible. He drives with a passage of Scripture taped to his steering wheel, studying it at pit stops. "They're always different," he says, and they remind him that "I'm able ... to overcome anything." Surely Christ can overcome -- or overlook -- Gordon's "marital misconduct" with an exotic dancer/ occasional Bay Watch star-turned-department store cosmetics saleswoman-turned-Playboy model, which his wife would later cite in her divorce papers.

• Evander Holyfield. As the holy Holyfield explained "There is no way I cannot win. I believe in God, so I will surely beat Tyson.... Well, you know, I'm led by the Holy Spirit, so whatever I do, I know I will have enough to win." It must have been the satanic spirit, then, that led Tyson to do to Holyfield's ear what Eve did to the apple in Eden. Since Tyson was a member of the nation of Islam, the bite may have represented the way holy war between Christianity and Islam. Either way, Holyfield continues to listen to the Lord (from His lips to Evander's lone ear.) So he's forgiven when doesn't pay child support, cheats on his wives, and has children outside of holy matrimony (he estimates 9). The Lord understands that Holyfield is just seeding God's world, and following his order to "be fruitful and multiply." 

• Andy Pettitte. The NY Yankees pitcher writes in his spiritual treatise Strike Zone: Targeting a Life of Intregrity and Purity, "As a Christian I also have one goal. I want to fulfill God's purpose for my life. I constantly ask myself 'What does God want me to do?' and 'Where does He want me to go?'" Somehow Pettitte made a petite erreur and thought God wanted him to take Human Growth Hormone. But this Christian zealot can surely be forgiven for his overzealous use of performance enhancing drugs and lying. After all, he only claimed to be targeting a life of integrity and purity, not hitting said target.
• Deion Sanders. Humbly referring to himself in the third person, the football and baseball wonder writes in his born-again memoir Power, Money & Sex that "He loves the Lord with all his heart," and, in a particularly heart-warming passage, "is covered by the blood of Jesus." His faith is so great that he paid only1,500 on a4,265.57 car repair bill because, as he told the mechanic, "Praise Jesus ... I follow what in my heart I'm told to pay.'' In exchange for the praise, Christ, Sanders' financial adviser, forgives the bi-ball star's drug abuse, philandering, assaulting fans, depleting his children's trust fund, and wife-battering.

 
So, Tiger, follow the advice of Brother Brit. Embrace Christ like these fellow athletes, whose sinning never gets in the way of their faith and whose faith never gets in the way of their fun! Just Say No to Nirvana and Yes to Deliverance.

   It is going to take the concerted effort of a lot of voices to overcome the noise being generated by the people who would like us to think that economic salvation is at hand. So, we need to keep pointing out some harsh realities facing real people. For example:

The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.

....The economic downturn also has prompted more middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy protection. Overall, personal bankruptcy filings hit 1.41 million last year, up 32% from 2008, according to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, which compiles and analyzes bankruptcy data. It is the highest level of consumer-bankruptcy fillings since 2005. [emphasis added]

   I would like someone to please explain the logic of proclaiming an economic recovery because manufacturing has increased a bit when (a) we are still well below any sense of employment growth that would bring back millions of jobs and (b) people who are working are doing so at a level of wages that has not grown in 30 years (so, understandably, the level of personal bankruptcy has risen because if costs continue to rise but wages don't, you can't keep up) and (c) personal debt remains quite high and (d) credit has evaporated and (e) the moon is made of green cheese.

   Ok, I threw in "e" to make the point about the absurdity of the whole exercise of looking for "recovery" when we have not changed the fundamental frame of our economy. We are not having a serious debate if we continue to look to the "free market" for revival--witness the reliance on the health insurance industry to "fix" the health care system, the very sick system the health insurance industry created, or the mind-boggling notion that the "free market" can "fix" climate change, after the "free market" created the very conditions that have crippled the planet.

   We have to get serious.

The Republican world view of "national security" has been laid bare--ideology is more important than the security of the people. In my view, the fallout from the airplane terror plot makes this abundantly clear.

    There was a bit of wisdom that one could gain from the airline terror plot that, in my view, says a lot about the Republican view of the world and our own definition of national security. Yesterday, to its credit, The New York Times had an editorial entitled "Senator DeMint's Priorities," which made this point regarding the nomination of a permanent head of the Transportation Security Administration:

What’s the problem? Mr. DeMint says he won’t let the nomination go forward until he’s assured that a legal ban on T.S.A. workers unionizing will remain in place. Even after last week’s near-disaster over the Detroit airport, Senator DeMint clung to his union-bashing and knee-jerk warnings about the risks of security workers being allowed to collectively bargain.

He absurdly argued that “union bosses” will only worsen airline security (never mind that other federal workers and all manner of police forces responsibly exercise that right) while suggesting that President Obama has been out to “appease the terrorists.”

   I want to be cautious about trying to pursue a narrow connection between the blocking of the nomination and terror plots being made easier as a result. In fact, the whole raft of stories we are now being flooed with about intelligence "failures" is astonishing: blaming intelligence agencies for the failure to catch pieces of information, in the avalanche of information cascading around the globe, about ONE person in the globe seems to me to avoid the larger question--terrorism is a political challenge, not primarily a policing challenge. But, I digress...

    What was more interesting was this: DeMint's anti-unionism should make it clear that Republicans are not capable of safeguarding the country's "national security". I don't just mean preventing terro attacks. I mean "national security" in the larger sense of the well-being of the country. DeMint's demented assault on unions means not just that the TSA perhaps can't function. It means people don't get to earn a decent living and have to perform their TSA jobs without any dignity and respect and power on the job.

    Of course, The Times does not spend any time making clear why unions are a part of the larger picture of "national security". The focus of the debate should not be on whether collective bargaining inteferes with the ability to screen baggage. It should be on the point that collective bargaining actually ENHANCES our national security.

   ...is that one in four children in the United States of America--the wealthiest country in human history--are on food stamps.

   A quick post today on the run...someone is going to have a nice holiday haul thanks to you (from The Wall Street Journal):

American International Group Inc. is preparing to pay its outgoing general counsel Anastasia Kelly several million dollars in severance after she resigned over federal pay curbs, according to people familiar with the matter.

AIG determined that its top in-house lawyer was entitled to the money under the company's severance plan, whose terms say certain executives can resign and collect severance if their pay is reduced significantly, the people said. The move comes amid recent scrutiny of Ms. Kelly's actions in a December pay dispute involving her and four other senior executives. AIG's board engaged an outside law firm, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, this month to review Ms. Kelly's actions after she advised other executives on what they could do to protect their rights to collect severance benefits. Ms. Kelly also helped them arrange for outside counsel, a spokesman for her has previously said.

   Merit is one of the enduring standards we are all taught from the moment we start school. If you get good grades, you advance. If you perform well, you advance. What, then, are we supposed to think about the young children or college-age students who read about this, courtesy of The Times Gretchen Morgenson (who may be the only reporter in the traditional media who consistently calls the business world on the carpet for unethical and immoral conduct):

YOU might think that board members overseeing businesses that cratered in the credit crisis would be disqualified from serving as directors at other public companies.

You would, however, be wrong.

Directors who were supposedly minding the store as disaster struck at companies like Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual or Fannie Mae have not all been banished from other boardrooms. In many cases, directors just seem to skate away from company woes that occurred on their watch.

To some investors, this is an example of the refusal of those involved in the debacle to accept responsibility for it. Whether you are talking about top executives loading up on leverage, regulators who slept while companies took on titanic risks or mortgage lenders that made thousands of dubious loans, few in this crowd have acknowledged culpability. Taxpayers and shareholders, meanwhile, who had nothing to do with the problems, are left holding the bag.

“None of these directors have stood up and said, ‘We made a mistake here by not calling management to account,’ ” said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. “They have certainly avoided the limelight as far as blame is concerned.”

Moreover, they continue to get work as directors at other companies. [emphasis added]

   So, the people who have suffered from the credit crisis have NOT BEEN the people who created the crisis. Rather, the only people who bear the brunt are those who were essentially innocent bystanders--the average person who is now unemployed in the greatest employment crisis in generations.

   Merit is irrelevant in the business world. It's all about access and who you know--either in the board room or in Washington. This is what people are rightly furious about.

   If we wonder why the average person thinks government is dysfunctional and too often doesn't speak for the average person, here is another example (courtesy of The Wall Street Journal):

The top regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is expected to announce millions of dollars in pay packages for top executives at the government-run mortgage-finance titans, people familiar with the matter said.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency approved compensation plans for Fannie Chief Executive Michael Williams and Freddie CEO Charles Haldeman Jr. Those packages are expected to be in a range of $4 million to $6 million, people familiar with the matter said. The companies are expected to spell out pay details for their top executives in securities filings Thursday morning.

The Christmas Eve announcement is likely to provoke a fresh round of controversy concerning the federal government's role in propping up the two companies. Taxpayers have pumped more than $100 billion of capital into both firms to keep them from collapsing amid huge losses stemming from falling home prices and mortgage defaults.

   And on top of that:

Regulators and company officials went back and forth on how the pay could be structured, in part because executives didn't want to be paid in the companies' low-value stock.

   So, in a country where merit is supposed to be a guiding force and, in the new rhetorical mantra, where CEOs should get paid based on the performance of the company, we are now faced with a scenario where two failing financial entities, propped up by a mountain of taxpayer money, still believe that CEOs should rake in a king's ransom--paid for, essentially, by the people...the very people whose wages have been flat for 30 years and who face a long, painful road to claw back to a semblance of economic security...an economic security shaken by the reckless behavior of...the financial titans who now want to be rewarded with millions of dollars...but who do not want to be paid in stock that they fear will be worthless...because of the reckless behavior of the same financial titans.

   You can't make this up. Change? Where?

One of the biggest challenges that we face as a country is not that we lack money or wealth--we have plenty of money. Rather, we have a distorted set of priorities and an ideological frame that walls off many possibilities to create a decent society. For example: the belief in the so-called "free market" that blesses the piling up of wealth by a few at the expense of the many. So, here is an easy way to break through that frame: Wall Street owes the American people a small return on the investment the country has made in providing bankers and financiers the safe haven to do business (until those same bankers and financiers wreck their own business). And that small return could bring the country $354 billion to provide health care, road, schools and a cleaner environment.