Opinion: Tiger Woods hires Ari Fleischer for comeback. Does this mean George W. Bush is coming back too?

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America is the land of reinvention. Everyone gets a second chance. It’s part of the Constitution.

So it comes as no surprise -- in fact it’s wonderful news -- that the best golfer in the world is preparing his comeback on the links. Humbled by a sex scandal that involved too many marital infidelities to keep track of, fresh from completing a course in something called sex addiction at a clinic in Mississippi, talking like a man who hopes to rescue his marriage to Ellin Nordegren, Tiger Woods plans to attend the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 25 at Bay Hill in Orlando, Fla., according to the New York Post.

But for politicos, the bigger news is that Tiger has hired former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to help renovate the golfer’s image.

Fleischer is a competent guy, one of four who served George W. Bush. (The list: Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Tony Snow, Dana Perino). But he never did much to soften Bush’s image as a cowboy president. Now, it seems, Fleischer has renovated himself -- forming Ari Fleischer Sports Communications in 2008 to advise sports figures how to deal with the media.

So far Fleischer’s track record looks pretty good. He coached Mark McGwire on how to handle press questions about his steroid use after the disgraced slugger had gone into hiding. The public confession helped pave McGwire’s path to become a hitting coach for his old team, the St. Louis Cardinals. And he advised the Green Bay Packers during their tumultuous breakup with Brett Favre in 2008. In 2009*, the Packers made it to the playoffs, though not as far as Favre’s Vikings.

Maybe Bush will put in a call to Fleischer from Texas. After all, it’s never too late to reinvent.

-- Johanna Neuman

*Updated 6:50 p.m. March 12: An earlier version implied that the Packers made the playoffs and Brett Favre was on the Vikings in 2008.

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