What is Wrong with Political Spouses?

By: Steve Yuhas

Silda Wall Spitzer is not the first, and will by no means be the last, political wife to stand by her embattled husband – soon to be former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer announced his resignation Wednesday morning after it became public that he was involved with an international hooker ring – perhaps for the last decade.

Imagine the horror of standing next to the person who shamed you and your family and looking at them with endearing love as they apologize to their constituents for straying from the marriage (or dating) bed. The whole thing is unseemly and it would not be a big deal if it did not happen over and over and over again.

The most famous example is Hillary Clinton who went out defending her husband after news broke on the Drudge Report that he was involved with a White House intern. Former President Bill Clinton took to a podium and pounded his fist and pointing at the camera to deny the charges and the next day his wife and surrogates took to the airwaves to stand by Clinton.

Then the truth came out and the nation was thrust into the first impeachment of an elected President in the history of our nation.

Other political wives stood next to their husbands when they were caught up in sex scandals. Think back to the bathroom arrest of Idaho Senator Larry Craig when he denied charges of soliciting sex from an airport cop in a Minneapolis International Airport bathroom. Sure as anything there his wife stood looking on in shame as her husband defended himself, after pleading guilty to misconduct, declaring that he was not being gay and did not do anything wrong.

I have been cheated on and it was a devastating experience that sticks with me to this day, but I cannot imagine having to go through what I went through in the glare of the public eye. I find the level of privacy that is invaded in simply being a talk show host and therefore a public figure bad enough, but the scrutiny of a bad marriage on top of that - not me! And to have to stand next to a philandering ex would be far too much to deal with and one has to ask what is wrong with these political wives?

What brings political wives to the podium when their husbands find themselves in trouble with the law or caught in the midst of marital infidelity?

Perhaps it is the perks that come with being a political spouse since many of them are treated almost as good, if not better, than their husbands. In the case of the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, outside of the health care debacle that brought her public scorn, she was able to travel the world and end up with a U.S. Senate seat in a state she was a mere visitor and is now fighting for the Democratic nomination for the White House.

The other issue could be one of force. Maybe not the physical force that comes in domestic abuse, but I find it hard to believe that so many of these women are not privy to the private lives of their husbands. There is something to be said about women’s intuition that nobody in the public should believe does not apply to the wives of political figures. Maybe they know and simply do not care what their husbands are up to because they become used to the good life as the spouse of a political figure.

Whether the wife is someone like that of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who resigned in disgrace after his homeland security advisor (a person uniquely unqualified for the position) turned out to be the former governor’s gay lover or Hillary Clinton who knew of her husbands infidelities and was in charge of helping cover them up – the wives of politicians are willing to stand by their men no matter the case.

I find that simply amazing.

Granted, I am not a psychologist and have no desire to attempt to psychoanalyze any of these women (I've been on that couch and there is nothing I gleaned from it that qualifies me to analyze them), but there is something odd about women who are willing to throw away their dignity and publicly support the men that scorn them.

My experience with infidelity was one of personal turmoil and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it. I certainly did not want to hear from the person who hurt me, but these women are trotted out as political props for disgraced politicians and look upon them, sometimes ashamedly, but sometimes with adornment and love.

There must be something that can be gleaned about their public appearances by someone in the psych world who can teach us all about what it means to stand next to a person who willfully destroys a partnership in the most public of ways. Surely if these political spouses have some gene or type of personality that makes them more amiable to public humiliation many of us would like to have a bit of it injected, but there are too many from too many walks of life for there to be anything there except force in helping the person they love make it through a very tough time.

From looking at these people on television, none of them are comfortable in their role as political prop and none of them appear outwardly stupid. Their body language and eye movements look disgusted at the people they stand next to and whether they are separated by a dog (as was Hillary Clinton when she and Bill Clinton left the White House for the first time) or a simple podium – it makes no difference if they were forced to stand next to their spouses or not – they consistently do.

They seem ashamed and humiliated and the fact that their spouses put them through it is sick.

Politicians and public figures lead lives that are tough and the scrutiny that they (we) undergo on a daily basis is something that you are not always aware of going in, but once you know that the scrutiny is there you lay your cards on the table and hope that you do the right thing. We've all made mistakes and Lord knows I've wronged people in my life, but you learn from it and the thought of taking the person I love on the walk of shame with me (should there ever be one) is something I cannot fathom.

To think that I would read one day that my significant other was paying for sex or having an affair with interns would be something that I could not ignore and would never stand next to as even a tacit observer. I would hold my head up with some dignity and let him carry the burden of his sin, but that is from a guy who went through a messy break up that hinged on infidelity, but surely even a guy like me learns and if I only had women's intuition things may have been different.

Let’s just hope that Spitzer’s prenuptial agreement left him open to a huge settlement to be paid to his wife who is standing next to him in public, but if she is anything like a normal man or woman is sleeping alone and wondering where to get her next home.

The Lincoln Bedroom at the White House is where Hillary Clinton took refuge – not even the 5th Avenue apartment of Eliot Spitzer is enough to separate the former Empire State first lady from the man who ruined their marriage with $80k in prostitutes over eight to ten years.

Steve Yuhas is a radio talk show host on AM 600 KOGO in southern California and may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com