By Debbie Schlussel

As you probably are, I’m now officially sick of the Tiger Woods saga.  We’ve all had our laughs and it was an amusing diversion.  But the guy’s an embarrassment, and I’ve had enough. It’s old news.  Next.  What about how my healthcare is going to be managed by left-wing government bureaucrats who are going to drive all the good people out of medicine and tell a 90-year-old it’s time to die?  Far more important than the diseases Tiger Woods got and helped spread among the human female gym equipment of the week.

Still, the story of how he managed to silence the National Enquirer for two years by doing a deal with its sister magazine, Men’s Health, is notable for one reason only:  that it goes on in the media all the time.  And not just with tabloids like the Enquirer, but with mainstream media newspapers, TV news shows, etc.  Like that story, you wonder what stories about ObamaCare or Al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S. or some other important issue are being squelched, too, in exchange for something.

For example, earlier this year, I noted that the New York Times reported that a U.S. Congressman, whom I believe is Republican Darrell Issa a/k/a “Jihad Darrell,” was caught on phone wiretaps talking ad nauseam with a known Islamic terrorist buddy.  All the clues point to Issa, the Hezbollah’s (and Syria’s and Arafat’s and the Saudis’, etc., etc.) best friend in Congress.  He’s a multi-gazillionaire, who is now the richest Member of Congress and got that way through a lifetime of crime, Mafia-style thuggery, and other indiscretions that make him a Mega-Pot-Kettle-Black in calling out the Obamas and ACORN (people investigating his insurance fraud, arson, and other crimes mysteriously “died”).  But he’s largely managed to keep that quiet and get thousands of clueless, ignorant conservatives, including those in the media, to gush over him.

Did Issa pay off the New York Times or someone else to keep his name from being published?  Did he pay off others, like FOX News or Glenn Beck (who constantly gushes over and blindly promotes Issa), from referring to his pan-jihadist history and lifetime of crime?  We’ll never know.  But the Enquirer isn’t the only media outlet that compromises itself in exchange for something else.  We know that Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal–a 6% owner in FOX News owner News Corp–got FOX News to stop calling Muslim riots in France, “Muslim Riots,” when he called Rupert Murdoch to al-whine.

As you’ll recall, the reason Gerry Rivers, er . . . Geraldo Rivera, was fired from (or left, depending on whose version you believe) ABC News was because he made a stink when “20/20” wouldn’t run his report exposing Robert Kennedy’s ties to the Mafia and his Marilyn Monroe stuff.  (Some would say the Kennedys were the original Tiger Woodses.)  The network wouldn’t run it because then-ABC News President Roone Arledge (a far lefty and hater of Israel, too) was friends with Ethel Kennedy, and he didn’t want her being embarrassed.

And these things happen all the time with important stories, not just sordid tales of multiple paramours, but important news stories about the conflicts of interest and behind-the-scenes dealings and behaviors of those who set policy and “lead” our country.  Why, for example, was I the only one to cover Barack Obama’s close ties to and staff members who belong to the Nation of Islam?  Why did it take the Enquirer and everyone else so long to cover John Edwards’ extra-curricular life and why didn’t they note it WHILE he was on the campaign trial instead of after . . . when he was little more than a historical footnote?

Who else has performed a Tiger deal like this one . . .?:

In the summer of 2007, a representative for Tiger Woods called an editor at Golf Digest with some awkward news. Though the magazine was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to secure preferential access to Mr. Woods, the golfer had agreed to a rare, in-depth interview and cover shoot with another publication, Men’s Fitness.

Golf Digest editor Jerry Tarde acknowledged that he was “mystified” that Mr. Woods had agreed to this. Under Golf Digest’s contract with Mr. Woods, the monthly, which is owned by Condé Nast Publications Inc., spent as much as $1 million annually on donations to the Tiger Woods Foundation, printing the charity’s annual report and sponsoring many of Mr. Woods’s preferred tournaments, according to a person familiar with the terms. In return, Mr. Woods agreed to . . . limit his appearances in competing publications.

Yet never had Golf Digest been granted the level of access to the golfer’s private life allowed for in the article and photo shoot published in Men’s Fitness in August 2007. . . .

Mr. Woods had cut an unusual deal with American Media Inc., the owner of both Men’s Fitness magazine and the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper. Mr. Woods agreed to the cover shot and photo spread in Men’s Fitness, whose circulation of about 700,000 per issue is less than half of Golf Digest’s nearly 1.7 million, in return for the National Enquirer squelching a story and photographs purportedly showing Mr. Woods in a liaison with a woman who wasn’t his wife, according to people directly involved in the arrangement.

This is how the media operates. Whenever you read something, you always have to wonder, what deal was made for this story? What story isn’t there because this story is?

I don’t care about how Tiger Woods squelched the stories about his harem. That’s irrelevant.

What’s relevant is what someone else–countless other people–squelched–in far more relevant and important stories we’ll never hear or won’t read about until it’s too late.