We're the ones at fault here. Not Tiger Woods.

The man did something morally wrong, at least in the viewpoint of most. He did not break any laws. He did not steal. Or shove anyone down a flight of stairs.

And now he's apologized, to the extent Tiger Woods ever has apologized.

But we remain unsatisfied. We want more. Want the salacious details. Want the dirty laundry. Want more than Tiger Woods, always private, invariably secretive, ever will give.

We're the ones at fault. We in our unrelenting quest for gossip and scandal. We, who have made messes of our own lives, are thrilled when someone famous, someone talented, makes a mess of his life.

We rub our hands together gleefully. Grab the magazines from the supermarket counters. Sit in anticipation in front of the TV.

Pogo said it. Or did his creator? "We have met the enemy and it is us.'' It is not Tiger. He didn't con people out of a billion dollars. He didn't lock up a young woman in the back of a home.

He toyed with our emotions. Nothing illegal there, just disheartening.

His behavior was non-criminal. It was distressing, because he turned out to be someone we didn't conceive he might be. Now we know who he is. Or, we hope, was.

Now he gets back to the reason we admired him in the first place, his golf game.

All we know now about Tiger Woods we didn't know before the end of November was he rammed a car into a fire hydrant, had liaisons with a large number of women and has gone to rehabilitation to try save his marriage and re-think his priorities.

He's still programmed, still protective. I've covered Woods from the time he was at Stanford, seen every major championship he's played since turning pro in 1996. He's never been revelatory. His interviews are pabulum.

That's his nature, his philosophy, his intent. He walks with head down on the course the better to ignore our fawning, our prying.

A journalist in Britain I know well last week labeled Woods a liar because Tiger announced during his Feb. 19 mea culpa he would return to golf "some day," he just didn't know when. Which the journalist inferred wouldn't be for months.

Then Woods said last week he would be entering the Masters, held the second week in April. But of course. If he's ready, he plays. The sooner the better.

He never set a date for his return. If there's any surprise, it is that Tiger is not playing any sort of warmup event before the first major of the season.

Is that lying? To insist he could compete in the future, and then a month later tell us, if indirectly, the future is now? Or at least is April.

Then, Sunday, in what certainly was a pre-emptive maneuver to gain an advantage over the rest of the media, he, or his management, consented to five-minute interviews with ESPN and The Golf Channel.

They were allowed to ask anything. And, Tiger being Tiger, was allowed to answer nothing, or close to nothing.

He told Tom Rinaldi of ESPN of how he came to understand the severity of his indiscretions, "Stripping away denial, rationalization. You strip all that away, and you find the truth.''

He told Kelly Tilghman of The Golf Channel, "Yeah I tried to stop, and I just couldn't stop. It was just, it was horrific.''

But what he didn't tell either was what happened when he crashed the SUV into the fire hydrant. "It's all in the police report. Beyond that, everything's between (wife) Elin and myself, and that's private.''

That is absolutely acceptable. Unless you are reveling in human frailty, as too many of us are.

On CNN Headline News' "Showbiz Tonight," four screaming faces were involved in what was labeled a "cheating scandal smackdown.''

Who, we were asked, was "the biggest cheating dog,'' Tiger Woods, former North Carolina senator John Edwards or Sandra Bullock's estranged husband Jesse James?

That's the way it is. That's the way we are. Who dares report on the new health plan? Or another suicide bombing in the Mideast? Sex sells. Embarrassment sells. Hey, did you hear about ...

We've heard too much about Tiger, but we're not going to hear much more, except how he strikes his tee shots, or reads the breaks of the tricky Augusta greens.

Fine. What does he owe us anyway? He confided he made mistakes.

"I was living the life of a lie,'' was the comment.

Isn't that enough? For him? For us?

We are well versed in what he did. It's time at last to find out what he does. And what we do.