WASHINGTON (CAP) - Following a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff this morning, President Barack Obama has announced that he is authorizing an additional 30,000 paparazzi to be dispatched to the Orlando, Fla. home of Tiger Woods. The president said he is committed to using any means necessary to get to the bottom of recent events surrounding the pro golfer.
"Let's face it. Media coverage of the, uhh, Tiger Woods situation has been lacking these past couple of days," Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room. "Just how many mistresses does he have? We still don't know. How could he possibly see the need to cheat on that hottie Elin Nordegren? We don't know that, either."
Obama's pledge of the additional paparazzi provides the manpower necessary to keep close tabs on Woods' every move until such a time as all the questions are answered. Just yesterday, Woods managed to slip out the back of his home to a waiting cab in order to get a bite to eat at a nearby sub shop. It was a full 45 minutes before local media outlets were able to identify and report on the exact type of sandwich that Woods had purchased.
"There hasn't been anything new to report since, what, Wednesday?" said TMZ managing editor Harvey Levin, who will oversee the paparazzi deployment. "The media is not milking Woods' public apology enough. We need to make him the sorriest celebrity since Mel Gibson or Michael Richards."
Critics of Obama's plan say the massive paparazzi surge leaves other celebrity hotspots open to insurgent actions by Hollywood icons without the proper media coverage. They pointed to a 2006 Lindsay Lohan drunk episode that went wholly unreported except by the CAP News reporters who were sleeping with the actress at the time.
"Just as we have done with Britney Spears countless times, or Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground," said General Stanley McChrystal. "This will be the beginning of the end of Tiger Woods as a media darling."
European allies offered a mixed response to Obama's announcement of his Tiger Woods strategy, expressing concern that contributing their own paparazzi reinforcements would leave no one available to snap candid pictures of A-list celebrities sunning themselves in skimpy bikinis on Mediterranean beaches. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he believed members of the alliance would contribute 5,000 paparazzi.
"This is not just America's story," Rasmussen said at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. "But this mistress angle will be a tough sell to Europeans. Hell, everyone in Europe has a mistress. That's not news."
France and Germany ruled out an immediate commitment, but Italian defense minister Ignacio La Russa said his country would send paparazzi on the promise that time is spent not just documenting Woods' every emotion for public display, but also training the Orlando media in better celebrity crisis management.
Obama will detail his Tiger Woods exit strategy in a primetime speech this evening. Sources say the plan will be to have all additional paparazzi redeployed to their original locations by late 2011, or whenever a bigger, more interesting celebrity story hits the news.
- CAP News Staff