Tiger Woods answered more than 30 minutes worth of reporter’s questions today ahead of his Masters tournament return to golf on Thursday, and he was candid, revealing and contrite.

For those who wanted answers, there were answers. For those who wanted emotion, there was emotion. Here’s what he said.

Mark Seal‘s “The Temptation of Tiger Woods” piece in the new issue of Vanity Fair provides just as many down-and-dirty details as you’d expect from a Tiger exposé at this point. There’s the revelation that members of Tiger Wood‘s inner circle didn’t just know of his affairs, they helped cover them up. There’s the depressing accounts of Earl Woods‘ alleged womanizing and bouts with alcoholism. And, there’s this, which takes the cake for “most sordid detail nobody really needed to know about.”

This Tiger Woods story from December just refuses to skulk away in disgrace. The morning greeted us with a new Tiger mistress exposé in Vanity Fair and a New York Times Opinionator post evaluating the damage Woods has done to America. Even if Robert Wright is right about the Tiger story incinerating American culture, no one wants this story to die more than Tiger Woods, which is exactly why we should keep writing about it.

Is Oprah’s America a weaker America? Does redemption that comes easily, without major atonement, send a message that transgression is no big deal, and wind up encouraging self-destruction?

Jimmy Kimmel had some fun last night with the five-minute ESPN and Golf Channel interviews of Tiger Woods on his ABC late night show.

Besides commenting on Woods’ answers and the length of the interview, he edited together a fake interview between Woods and his security guard Guillermo.

Let’s get some things straight — Tiger Woods five-minute interviews on Sunday with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi and the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman were just the next phase of the carefully planned PR charade to prepare for his return to golf at The Masters. But more important, it was another step to regain control of the situation. While apparently there were no restrictions set on the questions, the interviewers were confined to five minutes with Woods. That’s right, five measly minutes. What a joke. At this point, five hours wouldn’t suffice.

Earlier this afternoon, Tiger Woods gave his first interviews since the accident last November with two sources, ESPN and The Golf Channel. The terms were surprisingly open: five minutes straight with no questions off limits, but mandated to be held for broadcast until 7:30 p.m. EDT. It’s been a busy 10 days in Tiger news since he signed former George W. Bush Press Sec Ari Fleischer on board to run rebuild Woods’s image.

There’s been no shortage of controversy in the news since South Park last aired in November, and as you might have been aware, Tiger Woods found himself at the center of much of it. It was inevitable show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker would take on the Tiger scandal at some point, so they got right to it last night, and delivered a classic, if by-the-book, South Park episode to kick off the show’s 14th season.

Andrew Young certainly hopes so. The former John Edwards aide – who is admittedly leveraging all he can out of the former VP candidate’s sex scandal with Rielle Hunter – is now starting to hint at other women Edwards may have been involved with.

After serving over a year in office, Barack Obama finally sat down for an interview with Fox News today, when chatted in a for roughly 17 minutes in a pre-taped segment with Bret Baier. The sometimes combative tone of the interview stands in stark contrast to the “walk and talk” segment between Baier and Obama, likely recorded in advance of the actual sit-down taping. While walking in the halls of the White House, Obama addressed foreign policy issues like Israel and Iran, and even gave a rather forgiving opinion on Tiger Woods.

The understatement for the first quarter of 2010 is that CBS Sports has had an ok start to 2010. First, its broadcast of Super Bowl XLV became the most watched television program in history, to be followed by its annual domination of March and the NCAA Men’s hoops tournament. But there’s another spring event in the CBS Sports catalog that is going to be a bigger spectacle: this April’s Masters, and this year’s event has the tease of Tiger Woods return as its big draw.

The stage is set for Tiger Woods return to golf, and he’s doing it at a tournament that has “a tradition unlike any other.”

Woods said in a statement today he’ll make his long-awaited return at the Masters on April 5, and CBS is bracing for huge ratings as a result.

The gossip blog Radar Online released an exclusive report suggesting – complete with vagrant links leading to “Top Ten Celebrity Mugshots” and the Bristol Palin child support paperwork – that the resignation of Chief Justice John Roberts from the Supreme Court is imminent. It took about fifteen minutes for them to be forced into retracting the statement, but in exchange for some political credibility Radar won an all-important link on the Drudge Report and a small mention on Fox News, besides the internet wildfire of links all through the political blogosphere.

Carl Jung called it synchronicity – the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner (thanks Wikipedia!) Not sure that this is a perfect example of that, but its certainly a weird coincidence: a storyline about sexual addiction on Yes, Dear — the CBS sitcom now running in reruns on TBS –somehow worked in a throw away line about Tiger Woods and…sexual addiction? Now this would sort of make sense if Rachel Uchitel was attached to the show, but an IMDB search reveals no such evidence.

Criticism of cultural immaturity is all the rage lately, with Slate’s Jacob Weisberg and Newsweek’s Evan Thomas both trying their hand at it recently. But another immaturity critique in this week’s Newsweek, this one by George Will, stands out – unfortunately, it does so for the wrong reasons.

If you spent the weekend caught up in tsunami or hockey fever, you may have missed the story in Golf Digest about Tiger Woods’ seclusion following the revelation of his affairs. In the article, written by Jaime Diaz, the golf pro allegedly received phone calls of support from both former president Bill Clinton (which almost makes sense…) and our President Barack Obama. Except at least half of that never happened.

According to this month’s CBS/Vanity Fair poll 22% of those asked would be willing to forgive Tiger Woods his bad behavior (no word on whether Elin was one of the polled). This may seem like a low number, but Tiger should perhaps breathe a sigh of relief: he polls well compared to, say, John Edwards who only got five percent of the forgiveness vote.

When Golf Digest had that major whoops…putting a cover out of President Barack Obama with PGA winner Tiger Woods under the caption, “10 Tips Obama Could Take From Tiger” right in the middle of the media unearthing all of Tiger Woods’ scandalous affairs, we could chalk it up to bad timing. But now the magazine thinks it’s on to something…did the president really call Tiger during the blizzard of bad p.r. and offer words of encouragement?

Tiger Woods‘ apology Friday morning was broadcast on dozens of networks – but the top-rated network was a non-sports outlet. Fox News had the most viewers, even topping ESPN.

Here’s a breakdown of how the networks fared for Tiger coverage.

Tiger Woods is safe from no one! Last Friday even Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn took aim at the beleagured Woods when she walked into a Time interview shortly after the golf mega-star’s bizarro press conference. Listen up SNL, Vonn appears to be pitching you!

But no, the joke wasn’t in the “package” part. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell certainly has a way with words: This morning on Fox News Sunday, the Senate Minority Leader spoke out against Obama’s economic stimulus package, and even tried to…make a joke? Maybe? We’re really not quite sure what his comments about Tiger Woods and John Edwards having a better year than the stimulus package were supposed to mean. Does the economy have a sex problem or secret love-child that we should know about? What?

This is going to be interesting. Which Glenn Beck is going to show up to deliver the key note address tomorrow at CPAC. No one seems to know, including Glenn Beck. If it’s the Glenn Beck who opened today’s show by blaming Dick Cheney et al. for the economy, it’s going to be an interesting address.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has been presumably prodded by his dismal ratings in 2012 Republican presidential candidate polls to find himself a personality, tried to make a joke in his speech at CPAC earlier today. About Tiger Woods. More specifically, praising his wife Elin Nordegren for smashing the back of his SUV to pieces, and labeling her a role model for conservatives to follow in their approach to big government.

Tiger Woods press conference wasn’t the only province of awkwardness – the run-up to his public apology also brought some odd moments. Namely, Fox News James Rosen made a strange analogy when he compared the Thanksgiving night incident in which Tiger’s secret life began to unravel with the Watergate break-in that lead to the resignation of then President Richard Nixon. Huh?

In a slow, deliberate, 12-minute address by Tiger Woods, one of the greatest athletes of all time, he apologized and shed some light on his future plans.

It began with a slow walk alone to a podium in front of a blue curtain (“It looks like a magic show,” said Rick Reilly on ESPN) and ended with a hug from his mom who was sitting in the front row of the small audience. Here’s what happened in between, with video of the statement.