Fall from grace shatters careers

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The fall from grace can be a drastically painful experience.

One day a person is being placed high on a pedestal by an adoring public. The next day they come crashing down.

Tiger Woods is the latest in a long list of celebrities – from many different walks of life – to see their careers implode.

The onetime Greatest Golfer in the World is now another mugshot on the celebrity wall of shame.

It is a sad but repetitious saga.

So often people who seem to have the world at their fingertips, lose their grip on reality.

Sometimes it is addiction to drugs.

The entertainment world – and, in particular, the music world – is littered with examples. They go all the way back to the days of Judy Garland and Billie Holiday. The seemingly endless string of tragedies continues through Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin … all the way to modern train wrecks such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Prince.

Other times it is the sheer poison of too much power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The greatest American example is Richard Nixon. He was obsessed with maintaining his power. In the last days of his presidency he dissolved into a manic, paranoid shell. The most powerful man in the world had lost everything.

He was not the only example. On a more local level there was the sad story of former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane. Her obsession with power led her down an illegal path of revenge. And that path led to prison.

In recent years, sex has proven to be an equally debilitating agent to the careers of the once-powerful.

That was not always the case. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a long-term affair with his wife’s social secretary, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. Although an increasing circle of people knew of the relationship, it never affected his political career.

Even more famous for his philandering, John F. Kennedy maintained a steady string of “female friends” up to his final day. Most notorious among his sexual conquests was Marilyn Monroe. Again, it never affected him politically.

The first American politician to ride the sex train into tabloid hell was probably Gary Hart. After an unsuccessful run at the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, he was the oddson choice to be the party’s candidate in 1988. Until … his affair with blonde bombshell Donna Rice became public. The then-52-year-old Hart was photographed aboard a businessman’s yacht en route to Bimini with the 29-year-old Rice. His campaign spiraled downward, he withdrew from the campaign, and he spent the next 20 years in relative anonymity, before formally retiring.

It would have seemed logical for Bill Clinton to follow a similar route. His indiscretions were more numerous … and more entangling. Instead he survived much tougher scandals. There were numerous accusations, then the Jennifer Flowers tapes, and subsequent allegations. Finally, there was the sordid affair – right in the Oval Office – with 21-year-old intern Monica Lewinsky. But none of that muck stuck on Clinton. Perhaps the media mugging of Gary Hart numbed America’s con-

science and paved the way for Clinton’s never-ending string of escapes.

Clinton became a hero to many, yet Fox News star Bill O’Reilly was the latest to take a public tumble – for far less. His transgression was sexual harassment of female co-workers at Fox. But it was all talk and, apparently, no action. From No. 1 in the television ratings to No.1 on the feminist hit list.

And all of this brings us back to Tiger Woods.

With 14 major championships in his portfolio – apparently on the way to shattering Jack Nicklaus’ career record – Woods seemed unstoppable just a few years ago.

Then he fell prey to a hyperactive zipper.

First there was the late night incident with his former wife Elin – a violent scene precipitated by her discovery of his many sexual transgressions. They included an early morning rendezvous with a Perkins Pancake waitress and late night sorties with strippers.

This was followed by a string of physical failures and prescription drug use.

The final scene was a roadside arrest, a stumbling sobriety test and a damaged auto that featured two flat tires. And even greater damage to what was left of his legacy.

The released dashcam video of Woods was a long way from scenes of him triumphantly holding trophies above his head or being fitted for another green jacket.

Humpty Dumpty really had a great fall. It may take more than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.