What Would Tammy Do?

Huh. So Eliot Spitzer, current Governor and former Attorney General of New York who built his political reputation by targeting Wall Street corruption and ethically dubious business practices by the likes of Merrill Lynch and Sony BMG, was busted by federal authorities investigating a "high end" prostitution ring. Many media outlets are noting that his has the potential to be a career-ending scandal for Spitzer, while other commentators observe the irony in Spitzer being, well, "Spitzered" -- that is, targeted by the type of criminal investigation with which his name became synonymous.

Clearly, politicians' involvement in sex scandals is nothing new*: Republicans and Democrats. Local, state, and federal officials. Gay and straight. Young and old. Sex scandals have marred the careers of a wide variety of politicians. One thing these men do seem to have in common, however, is having staid, supportive spouses who take Tammy's advice and "stand by their man". Hillary Clinton. Suzanne Craig. Wendy Vitter. Carlita Kilpatrick. And now Silda Spitzer. All have stood resolutely alongside their shamed husbands, hands clasped and heads bowed solemnly while their partners ask public forgiveness for their transgressions.

I have been thinking a lot about this and have decided that the wives of publicly disgraced politicians are in similar situations as battered women. After all, both groups of women have partners who engage in morally reprehensible behavior that causes them pain, shame, and embarrassment, and both groups of women generally are expected to simply pick up and leave their husbands. Yet, I'd wager that the decision to leave one's publicly shamed politician husband is just as agonizing as the decision to leave one's abusive husband. (One crucial difference, though: politicians' wives obviously do not face the economic challenges that many battered women do.) Consider the words of Dina McGreevey, ex-wife of former New Jersey governor James McGreevey who was embroiled in a sex scandal of his own back in 2004:

"I was criticized for standing there. Hillary Clinton was criticized for standing there with her husband. We all do it for very personal reasons," McGreevey said in the CNN interview.

"You don't know what it's like unless you're in the person's shoes."

Agreed, and I think that sentiment applies equally well to women in abusive relationships. That said, I will allow that -- just once -- it would be incredibly refreshing for the wife of one of these politicians to hold a press conference in which she announced that she was kicking his [cheating/lying/philandering/adultering/prostituting/etc.] scoundrel ass to the curb.

*Though such news undoubtedly is more shocking when the politician is (or, more accurately, was) regarded as an uncompromising moral crusader like Spitzer.