More re: Eliot Spitzer

[pegkerr]

I deeply appreciated the following letter which was the letter of the day in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune:

What's wrong with the wronged wives of politicians, allowing themselves to be dragged out in front of the cameras to be further humiliated by their betraying husbands?

Can't they say, "No way, pig"?

And, if the stated intention of the news conference is for the politician to resign, and he doesn't, wifey should grab his buttocks and dig in her nails, whispering in his ear, "Resign, stupid, before I grab some other part of your anatomy and hurt you real bad in front of all these nice people."

If they are not tough enough to do that, then they should just stay home. Please! And take their phony "support" with them.

N. BAKER, ST. LOUIS PARK

Comments

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

the perspective is amusing but i'm not sure i agree with the intent. in particular, we're still innocent until proven guilty, and this has not gone to trial yet. i admit the evidence is pretty overwhelming, but i don't like that he's already basically convicted in the public/media eye.

furthermore, i don't know that adding family fighting to this scandal (or any other) would particularly improve things. as a political spouse, i'd be embarrassed enough to begin with and wouldn't want to risk drawing more attention by a 'governor's wife forces him to resign: is spitzer totally whipped?' headline.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I agree!

Furthermore, I hate that even in this situation, it's the wife's fault, no matter what she does, she can't win- the public is criticizing her? for any reason? why? She shouldn't be a target at all, regardless how she chooses to react in public.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I didn't read the letter as criticism; what I got from the letter is that the wife should be let off the hook of having to "be nice and supportive." She shouldn't have to appear by his side if she doesn't want to, and if she wants to get mad in public about it, she can.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I definitely took it as a criticism- "What's wrong with the wronged wives of politicians, allowing themselves to be dragged out..." sounds like blaming them, not letting them off the hook.

I just didn't perceive much empathy in the letter, that she should be allowed to be mad, but as if the writer is angry that the wife isn't demonstrating her own anger in public.

What Is It With The Wives?

[rachet.livejournal.com]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/121328

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

What is it with everyone assuming that the wife automatically has to object, and that it's not possible that she's perfectly OK with it and just hasn't considered this anyone else's business ?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, now that you point it out, that is an assumption on my part. My hopelessly monogamist mindset, I guess.

But there is still the issue that he's the former attorney general of the state who prosecuted prostitution rings.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Yup. It's one thing for somebody not to be monogamous -- none of my business, as long as the activities don't take place in the street and scare the horses, although I do wish folks well with their romantic lives, generally, as long as they involve consenting adult humans -- but it's another thing for a public official to engage in criminal activity that not only has he prosecuted in the past, but leaves him open for blackmail in the present.

That is disgusting. And, yes, criminal. (And, yes, it applies to Vitter, as well, except for the prosecuting part.)

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Maybe she loves him.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. And more power to her, if that is the case. But after a while, watching these shell-shocked women standing wordless with damp eyes behind their husbands while those husbands confess to all manner of misdeeds... "sad" doesn't begin to cover it.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree: You make the bed you lie in, and if you don't support your man at his low moments you're probably going to lose him but if you do than you're going to have to take his lumps. (Unless, of course, she knew about it, and had dealt with the personal issues already.)

Sad all the way around.

I don't at all feel sorry for women like Mrs. David Vitter. She had excoriated Hillary for standing by Bill and then silently endured even worse when her hubby got caught going to prostitutes over many years. She made public comments about other women. When it was her turn she didn't have the courage of her "values".

[fairmer.livejournal.com]

Well, making a certain set of assumptions here--like, she didn't know about the affair, she's not, er, *pleased* about it...

If she's staying with him, she's doing it for one of two reasons: she either loves him, or she is as invested in his career as he is. In the latter case, she's not going to convince him to resign, because she's only staying with him for the career. In the former case, well, much as I love *my* husband, and would probably forgive an affair, I'm not going to be pleased to see him as a cheater AND unemployed in the same week.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

There's another factor that several wives who have endured a situation like this have talked about afterwards: shock. They are so shocked that perhaps the emotions haven't entirely kicked in yet, and they haven't the faintest idea what they should do now.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Okay.

She could easily be shocked. She could be furious because she knew and he promised he would keep it secret. She could be self-righteous because she knew and didn't believe he would be able to keep it secret. She could be power-hungry and thrown because her power has just been taken from her. She could be jealous because even in this situation he gets the limelight and she gets second billing. She could be terrified because she saw how Hillary got treated. She could love him desperately and be hoping that this will bring him back to her.

Give me five more minutes and I'll give you ten more things she could be. And if I'm sure of one thing, it's that she's feeling more than one way and in internal turmoil because her feelings are not congruent.

I swear, if I see one more piece of news, letters to the editor, LJ posts, or other commentary blaming her for how she did or didn't respond, I'll fly out there and tell her myself that she gets to do WHATEVER SHE FUCKING FEELS LIKE DOING and critiquing her is nobody's business.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the letters/commentary are actually directed at this specific instance. It is more that we've had a series of Wives Standing By Misbehaving Husbands at news conferences, and it seems baffling to me and to a number of other people.

I admit that I don't get it. I would be reacting completely differently, but I'm not the wife of a power-politician and I don't want to be. My amazement is more that this is a consistently played out scenario that I just don't understand. She (and all of the other wives we've seen go through this) has every right to do what is best for herself. However, I also have the right to be utterly boggled by it.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard the brought up this morning on one of the MPR (or was it NPR?) program.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

for once, gmail gives me a relevant link

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Today's New York Times has an op-ed piece by Dina Matos McGreevey, ex-wife of former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, entitled "Stand By Yourself", on just that subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/opinion/12mcgreevey.html

It's probably behind the NYT firewall, but the highlights are that she feels it's a individual, personal decision, that the pol should probably stand up there by himself, and that in her case,

For me, I was essentially in the dark about what my husband was going to say. He never told me he was gay; he simply passed me a copy of his speech an hour before the press conference. I was in a fog. I certainly didn’t volunteer. I was in no emotional state to make a rational decision, and there simply wasn’t time. He asked me to stand next to him, and I did.

She did it "for her daughter's father".

Gotta run - Gov. Spitzer is supposed to be appearing in two minutes, presumably to resign, and I have to turn on the TV.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I read that too.
I think it's hard to throw stones at the wife for doing what's expected at a time when they're shell-shocked and blind-sided. But I really wish it wasn't expected of them by the press and the political circles.
I could wish that their husbands would have more class then to ask it of them, but if they did, they wouldn't be in that sitch in the first pace, right?

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I always cringe for the wives something fierce.

However, I'd do the same thing if I were in their place. It's hideous, of course.

[irinaauthor.livejournal.com]

Here's another take on it. I see her point too.

[redbird]

If it were "What's with the public and the press, expecting politicians' wives to stand with them at a time like this? Why don't we respect their privacy, and let them work out whether they're staying married in private, or with the help of a counselor?" I would sympathize.

N. Baker is basically arguing that someone who does what zie thinks right in this situation--namely, force her husband to quit his job--must be tougher than someone who doesn't. Never mind that she might be up there with him because she thinks he should keep the job; because she wants their children to see the two of them sticking together; or even because she believes in "till death do us part" and doesn't see anything to be gained by having it out with her husband in public.

That's aside from the question of whether Gov. Spitzer and his wife agreed on a monogamous relationship and whether, if not, she considers him visiting a prostitute this to be a major betrayal. (There are people who are monogamous but consider "I will stay with you and our children" to be a much more significant promise than "I will not have sex with anyone else", and some who would mind this sort of extramarital sex much less than an ongoing affair with someone in their social circle.)

I don't think a person has to be poly to think that adultery is far from the worst thing that someone can do in a marriage.

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

What redbird said. Also, it's been reported (I have no way of personally knowing whether it is true) that Silda Wall Spitzer was very much against his resignation (that is probably one factor in why it has been this long coming). Quite the contrary to the letterwriter's "Resign, stupid" presupposition.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

The CBC program As It Happens had a really excellent interview about this very issue last night. You can hear the podcast of the interview at http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/asithappens_20080311_4980.mp3

Other program podcasts are at http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/podcast.html .

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I think the Today program had something on this (along with the radio program I mentioned earlier), and I thought, "Uh... Isn't this the part where '...for better or for worse..." comes into play?"

I feel I have to say that this has happened to a family member, but the other partner had a history of, well, adultery before they got divorced*.
_____
*I find it both sad and funny that the only way I can spell 'divorce' is by thinking of the country-western song...

[msavi.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the trend, either. I have read all of the comments to this post and I understand these points. They are good points. And yet if I put myself, with my marriage, in the position of these wives...I can't understand why every single one of them has done this. Because I really think I would not. I love my husband. I support him. But I would owe him no marital loyalty in that situation. The only thing that might give me pause is our son, but even then I'm not sure I would subject myself to such public scrutiny. What would that teach him, it's okay to be angry at Dad except in front of the cameras? It would be a time of great grief and anger for me, and I would need whatever privacy I could muster.

Of course every woman is free to make her own choices about what she does and doesn't do. But like N. Baker, I'm highly suspicious that so many women in this position have made the same choice. I feel that there must be something other than 'maybe she loves him' and 'what about the kids' and 'til death do us part' going on, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe even a little angry.

[redbird]

In addition to lots of reasons already stated, people who are in shock or otherwise don't know what to do will follow a familiar script, if there is one. As long as the available scripts are "stand by your cheating husband" and "scream at him in public," a lot of women will do the former because it doesn't seem as bad as the latter. We need more options, and that means we need to give each other more options, and more space--not write articles giving the wronged wife's (or husband's) biography in this context, for example.

[msavi.livejournal.com]

I would agree that there must be options between standing beside a philandering husband with a plastic smile and publicly screaming at him like a shrew. Which makes the trend even more unnverving to me, personally.

I really appreciate that you posted this!

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I saw that letter this morning before I left work, and I thought it TOTALLY kicked ass. Yes, it's hyperbole. I don't think the letter writer literally intended any butt-or-otherwise-pinching to be taking place as an appropriate response. And I don't think the letter writer meant to slam the woman herself so much as the culture which puts her and others in that position. Frankly, I find it refreshing that people are starting to question this "stand by your man" b.s. that women are automatically assumed to assume as their Womanly Duty.

Question: If it had been a woman who had cheated on her husband, would people expect him to Stand By His Woman? Or would they call him "whipped" (how I HATE that expression!) for doing so? I guess being "whipped" is a woman's place, not a man's. :-P Bleh.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

MPR had a former "supportive wife" commenting on that briefly today--essentially she said that she was still really stunned, but certainly never agreed to stand up in support at a media conference. She doesn't even remember it very well.

Essentially, she was still in shock.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Seems to me wives have the right to forgive erring husbands, and vice versa. Given that divorce is fairly easy to arrange, and in the case of this sort of public scandal would probably be on favorable terms, I think we should take the fact that the wives are not divorcing their husbands as a sign that they're still working to make things work out. Perhaps they're stupid to be doing so, but if we don't know the situation in detail, we're in no position to judge, and must let them judge for themselves.

So while I don't much relish the conventional "wife supporting her errant husband" press conference, I think we must assume that the wives are participating relatively consensually, at least in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

I suspect that wives of governors (and ex-governors) and other politicians mostly enjoy that status, and don't think an occasional prostitute is sufficient cause to give it up.