Brody's Scribbles... Recover From Your Sins Conservative Commentator Tells Woods

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Jan 5 |  On the January 3 edition of Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume commented that his "message" to Tiger Woods -- who Hume mentioned is "said to be a Buddhist" -- would be to "turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world." Since then, several conservative commentators have endorsed Hume's remarks or defended them from criticism.

HUME: Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation with him. I think he's lost his family. It's not clear to me that -- whether he'll be able to have a relationship with his children.

But the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal -- the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He's 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.

So my message to Tiger would be, "Tiger, turn your faith -- turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Now, before I proceed I am going to note that as a journalist, I have found the Fox News Network to be severely lacking in upholding recognised practises of our profession in terms of objectivity & impartiality. This has created an atmosphere/environment where the network's viewership has a conservative majority that the Fox exclusively caters to and as such the remark by Brit Hume telling Woods to turn Christian, isn't that far of a stretch for Hume to make nor is it not in keeping with the Fox organisational philosophy either. I don't agree at all with that however.

The Cover of The January 2010 Issue Of Vanity Fair Magazine

Several conservatives defend or endorse Hume's "message" to Woods

Tucker Carlson: "Recommending that someone in distress adopt a mainstream religious faith is pretty conventional advice." During a January 4 Q&A on washingtonpost.com, Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson had this exchange with a reader:

Jacksonville, FL: When did Brit Hume go crazy? Tiger woods should embrace Christianity and we will forgive him?

You say this on the air?

Tucker Carlson: Crazy? No. John Wayne Gacy was crazy. Judy Garland and Ezra Pound were crazy. Recommending that someone in distress adopt a mainstream religious faith is pretty conventional advice.

NewsBusters' Shepherd condemns criticism of "a gentle Christian evangelistic overture to a celebrity caught in sexual scandal." In a January 4 NewsBusters post criticizing Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman for "lambasting" Hume for his remarks, managing editor Ken Shepherd wrote: 

Tolerance is a virtue the Left loves to trumpet, except when the intolerable is set forward. In this instance, the intolerable is a gentle Christian evangelistic overture to a celebrity caught in sexual scandal.

Yesterday, Fox News analyst and professing Christian Brit Hume expressed his spiritual concern for Tiger Woods and urged the golf superstar to turn to Christianity for grace and forgiveness during a segment of the January 3 edition of "Fox News Sunday."

Fred Barnes characterized Hume's "advice" for Woods as "wise and caring." In a January 4 post on Twitter, Fred Barnes linked to a YouTube video of Hume's appearance on Fox News Sunday and highlighted Hume's "wise and caring advice for Tiger Woods" 

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez on "outrage:" "Hume is providing commentary ... that is his practical advice, based on an understanding of what Christianity offers in terms of forgiveness and redemption."  In a January 4 blog post on National Review Online's The Corner, Lopez wrote: 

"Brit Hume is providing commentary on that panel and that is his practical advice, based on an understanding of what Christianity offers in terms of forgiveness and redemption. It's a faith for sinners, and very obviously so (we Christians all too often make it all too obvious). Woods can take or leave the advice, if he happens to watch Fox or pick it up in the frenzy. But Fox does pay Hume to offer his commentary on matters in the news, after years of reporting on politics and culture. And that he did."

In a January 4 blog post, Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft wrote of the controversy surrounding Hume's comments: "Leftists in the state-run media are lambasting Brit Hume for promoting Christianity on a Sunday morning talk show. ... According to democrats and liberals it is no longer acceptable to promote Christianity publicly." Hoft added: 

"It used to be that liberals didn't want you to mention Christ in schools. Then they banned Christ from Christmas concerts and public squares. Now they are demanding that we not talk about Christianity in public. We should have seen this coming."

Now, all of this hubris also has me angry because once again the right-wing media's darlings have focused on an issue that ought to be non-issue now. For Pete's sake, leave the poor guy alone eh? He's lost damn near all of his corporate sponsorships, soon his wife and children due to the impending divorce, and then of course his personal reputation is in tatters due to his behaviour which I'll note that Woods has already issued a very public Mea Culpa for.

Then there's the hypocrisy of Hume's assertion that should Tiger Woods change his stripes he'd be redeemed. What a boatload of feces that is.

Every bloody time someone gets caught with their pants down in acts of unfaithful behaviours, it seems to me that the Ultra-Right always runs home to the mantra of 'Jesus will save you.' BUT, lest we forget, that doesn't include folk of a different persuasion say like a Buddhist maybe?

Here's the other part of this issue that sorely makes me want to vomit. Rather than focus on truly pressing issues such as the need for greater security measures at International Airports, or economics issues that are driving many families into states of poverty and despair, the pundits would rather take on a fallen hero whose behaviour was entirely human. Oh and then slap the "You need Christ in your life" label on the subject as if that will truly make things better.

Oh, I didn't hear outrage about the Ugandan mess where that nation's governing body was planning on killing Gays For Jesus. Nor did I hear any lectures leveled at the Governor of South Carolina whose wife took their four sons and left because he couldn't keep a part of his anatomy in his marriage bed.

This proves the point to me that America really needs alot more secular in its daily routine and far less non-secular as all that religion does is serve up more plates full of divisiveness & discontent to feed its population. Why can't the the Ultra-Right get it through their rather thick and quite intolerant skulls? Religious doctrine is NOT the "end all save all," and personal beliefs should be respected not critiqued on a forum such as Fox News Sunday.