I dunno. Let’s ask manliness expert, Ric Caric, maybe?
What we have discovered in the last week is that the Clintons imparted lessons in our political life that have indeed taken hold. That a governor, caught in Spitzer’s scandal, would even think for a moment that he had any honorable course other than resigning, would have been regarded as astonishing even into the 1990’s. That Silda Spitzer could have urged toughing it out would indicate that she is the child now of another, newer ethic. Is the calculation here that the family itself had a better chance of weathering the scandal if the husband succeeded in holding to political power? Is the family to be judged, not by the ethic it exemplifies  or degrades  but by the political position it may still command?
When political power and the position it gets you is your pole star; when the idea of social censure is no more; when partisan politics is held in higher esteem than human decency, then you get Silda Spitzer standing firm for her husband remaining in office. The humiliation that he put her through was less than the humiliation of watching someone else have all of that lovely, lovely power…
Yeah, Mikey, this is a true revelation about Mrs. Spitzer. Standing there – ashen, frowning, humiliated – you’d have thought it was because of the public knowledge that Mr. S had been discovered to prefer prime veal over choice cow. Now it appears that the primary vexation of losing the grip on the levers of power and policy.
Well, don’t be a sucker.
It’s never that. It’s always this.
Shame seems to have followed good manners into extinction. Spitzer was a thug with a law degree. He managed to transform being elected with almost 70% of the votes to the depths it took Bush 6 years to achieve. Because the law is a crude instrument for shaping behavior, we ought to be careful about what it proscribes. We need to be more careful about those we choose to enforce it.
Mrs Spitzer may well have been in shock, still. Did she know? Did she not know? I can only guess her first thoughts were for her children. People marry for all sorts of reasons, and my conventional reaction is that this was a sordid betrayal of marriage vows. But their marriage may be more Clintonesque.
If I were him, I wouldn’t have been at the press conference out of embarrassment. I’d have mailed it in and never shown my face in public. Actually, I’d probably be murdered in my sleep, but skip that reality. Why do we tolerate these people? Why did she stand up there? I don’t know. Why did he let her? That question pretty much summarizes my feelings for the former governor.
He’s a manliness expert in the same way I’m a ballerina.
The words ‘honorable’ and ‘Spitzer’ are mutually exclusive. An honorable man wouldn’t have put himself in that predicament in the first place. His wife? Hillary Clinton lite.
Jeffersonian, one of the big lies is that women are different when it comes to power. A careful reading of Renaissance history, and later, proves that false. Isabella of Castille was no wallflower; Elizabeth Tudor was not to be taken lightly; and Frederick the Great found a worthy antagonist in Maria Teresa.
…this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius! Age of Aquarius!
AQUARIU-U-U-U-U-US!!!
<stops, looks around>
What?
McGehee, it should be “the Age of Lucrezia, the Age of Lucrezia…Lu-cre-zi-aaaaa!!!!”
Nah, Lucrezia would have buried a blade in his left eye socket. At dinner, no less.
And Maggie Thatcher put a hurtin’ on those Argies, too.