Does it matter?

Does it matter what you do in your personal life?

How about this: Does it matter what you do in your personal life if you are famous?

Does it matter, if you are Mark McGwire, that you took performance-enhancing drugs during the best-performing years of your baseball career?

Does it matter, if you are Tiger Woods, that you cheated on your wife and children with a conga line of skanks?

Does it matter, if you are Charlie Sheen, that you allegedly drunkenly held a knife to your wife's throat in front of your 9-month-old twins on Christmas morning?

Does it matter, if you are Tom Cruise, that you attacked women who receive medical help for their post-partum depression?

Does it matter, if you are Mel Gibson, that you got drunk, drove drunk, then went off on a psychotic rant against Jews to the cop who pulled you over?

To me, the answer to all of the above is yes, it does matter. It matters enough what those people do that I try not to support them in any way. That means that since his anti-Semitic rant, I have not set eyes on a Mel Gibson project.

Nor have I watched anything Tom Cruise is involved in (yes, that includes "Jerry Maguire" reruns on TV).

It's why I'm glad Tiger Woods is losing all his endorsements.

It's why I fervently hope McGwire gets an asterisk next to his name in all the books.

And it's why I have decided to stop watching what I consider to be one of the funniest shows on television, "Two and a Half Men," because I don't think it's right that over the last couple of decades, Charlie Sheen can leave a trail of abused women behind him (let's not forget he actually shot Kelly Preston in 1990) and still be the highest paid actor on TV.

Back to the original question, it does matter what you do in your personal life, even if you are not McGwire, Woods, Sheen, Cruise, or Gibson. Because whatever path you walk, you leave footprints, and those who follow behind can see them.

You need to be accountable, and you need to be held accountable. No matter who you are. If we all lived our lives that way, I think we'd be better off.

This is the opinion of Elissa Bass.