by US Staff (Mon Feb 15, 2010)
When will men figure it out? When will men learn that when ‘they'
are on to you, especially in this day and age, you're done for.
OK, so you sort
of expect the proverbial ‘dumb jocks' to be, well, dumb. Sure, even in this
very column, we suggested to Tiger Woods that once the cat started slithering its way
out of the bag, he should come clean. But did he? Of course
not. His foolish pride had him convinced that ‘Team Tiger' could keep his dirty
little secrets under the rug and no one would be any the wiser. And what was his
plan? Voice mail messages to his conquests saying, ‘Hey, uh, it's me Tiger...'
Remember this for future use Tiger: It's never the scandal that brings you
down. It's always the cover up.
That's a sentiment that footballer John Terry might well agree with after his recent attempts to prevent the press reporting his affair with a team-mate's girlfriend.
So yes, we expect it from the jocks but surely not from a world
leader? Well pride is a tempting mistress. Just ask Bill ‘I did not have sex
with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky' Clinton about that. Bill, Bill, Bill. When you
have literally deposited the evidence onto the blue dress, your best course of
action is to just fess up.
And who is the latest victim of the siren song that pride plays in
the ears of powerful men? Akio Toyoda - President of Toyota. It seems that the company knew their
cars were dangerous years ago. But, their over-riding concern was presumably that ‘we are Toyota! The most powerful car
company in the world. We will deal with this on our terms dammit!'
Well, Mr. Toyoda's pride has caused far more than marital strain. This
pride caused people to die. It caused the potential collapse of one of
the premier brands of the last 75 years. And it proved that corporate greed
trumps all.
I for one am sick of pumped-up male pride - either personal or corporate. A bit of humility is long overdue.
