"He humiliated me and shamed me."

So says Dina Matos McGreevey, describing the experience of having her husband, then-Governor of New Jersey Jim McGreevey, confess at a press conference that he had a gay affair.

And I think that explains the feeling I have for Silda Wall Spitzer, just hurting for her, and understanding that Gov. Spitzer's hiring of a call girl is not separate from her. The idea, and this may be a modern notion, that her husband's infidelity reflects poorly on her. And I'm finally understanding, in a way I had not before, Hillary Clinton's struggles. I am older now, and I can identify with the wife instead of the intern.

[Sidenote: In the case of Mmes. McGreevey and Spitzer, their husbands' scandals compels the news media to give them back their maiden names. A way of reclaiming their personhood separate from the scandal-plagued spouse.]

I'm watching Eliot Spitzer resign right now, and Silda is standing by his side. She looks less blindsided than she did Monday. A few interesting comments from the XX Factor blog on Slate.

"In defense of the political wives who go to the press conference, smile forced smiles, and say nothing: Speaking (ahem) as a political wife myself, I can see one clear advantage to this option: It's all over quickly. And no one asks you for a follow-up interview. You appear once—and then you vanish forever, along with your husband's career. If you've been clever about it, you've kept your maiden name and can thus return to your own career. Those who make other, more attention-getting choices will later be forced back into the limelight to explain themselves, which is gruesome." — Anne Applebaum

"Each time they cut to footage of the Spitzers at their news conference, it only compounds my feeling that the sight of his dutiful wife is too sad to bear. Over and over, there she is, so mortified she's unable to lift her eyes from whatever piece of paper her louse husband is fiddling with. Doesn't it seem like this was longer than two days ago? My real problem with this scandal is not that it's none of our beeswax, but that I can't get past wanting to bake something for Silda—and then I hate feeling like that, too, because nobody wants pity-inspired sticky buns." — Melinda Henneberger