My choices for People of the Year.

Purely subjective choices for People of the Year:

1. Joe Lieberman--the man who gives aid and comfort to Republicans,

conservative Democrats and the health insurance lobbyists who love them.

2. Stanley McChrystal--this generation's version of the general

who once croaked "old soldiers never die, they just fade away"

and prompted President Harry Truman to remove him for defiance

regarding the Korean War; President Obama, facing a similar situation

with Afghanistan, meekly rolled over instead.

3. Lloyd Blankfein--head of Goldman Sachs, the bank

which apparently keeps Gordon Gekko's motto "greed works"

to heart.

4. Jeff Zucker--the man who has made NBC what it isn't today.

5. Oprah Winfrey--the talk-show megamogul who's moving from

syndication to ruler of her own cable network (acronym OWN)

6. Tiger Woods--from all the recent chatter, one would think

that he's the first-ever sports celeb to ever have affairs. Now

the media has shifted to wondering how much endorsement

money he stands to lose.

Tiger Woods--when private becomes public.

Awhile back (think it might have been on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT), Kevin Bacon said something like: "My private life is none of America's business."

But then again, he's merely a well-paid actor and not a supremely-well-paid, taught-by-dad-to-be-golf-machine-more-than-actual-person athlete like Tiger Woods.

It looks like Tiger successfully put a lid on conjecture about what exactly happened re the late-night SUV accident.

But the leak of a voicemail message allegedly by Tiger to one of his alleged mistresses (of the "my wife's looking for evidence I'm seeing other people" variety) seems to have prompted little more than a crisis-management-shaped "apology" on the Tiger Woods website.

It may be time for Tiger to speak actual human sentences instead of save-my-commercial-endorsements-make-it-go-away-euphemisms; i.e. be honest with his fans in order to redirect public attention towards more pertinent matters (i.e. the escalation of the Afghanistan War).

Jay Leno needs ratings. Perhaps it's time for Tiger to endure Jay hauling out his old "What the hell were you thinking?" line once more. [Rumors are that Tiger will do the mea culpa thing for Oprah.]

[UPDATE: 12/9/09--Here's an article about Tiger's alleged marriage counseling: http://www.sphere.com/nation/article/tiger-woods-tries-intensive-therapy-to-save-marriage/19269773]