A Catered Affair

[Mugu]

By GAIL COLLINS

Back in 1881, when U.S. Senator Thomas Platt of New York was visiting Albany, word went around the State Capitol that he had rented a hotel room for a tryst. According to The Albany Argus, Platt’s political enemies quickly got hold of the adjoining room, brought in “a stepladder, some whiskey, some crackers and cheese and cigars” and spent the next several hours taking turns peering over the transom.

Lately, with New York awash in sex scandals, I’ve been thinking that this stuff is not as much fun as it used to be. After a while, you’d really rather get back to discussing highway construction.

Sure, the Eliot Spitzer thing had its moments. But Spitzer had hardly gotten out the door when his successor, David Paterson, was confessing adultery to the New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez. The swearing-in party was still going while Paterson was coming clean.

The next day, Paterson called his first press conference as governor, in which he re-acknowledged his sexual sins with his wife, Michelle, by his side. That part was really disheartening. I thought that during the recent Spitzer unpleasantness we all came together as a nation and agreed that there should be no more bringing of wives to humiliating sex press conferences.


Read complete article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/opinion/22collins.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[Mabus]

1. I don't think the wives are forced to attend

People get married because they love one another. That love doesn't stop when one of them has an affair. Beyond that, I think some of the women aren't there for their husbands, rather they are there for their children.

Would I stand there if my husband were an elected official who got caught having an affair? I honestly couldn't tell you. There is a chance that I would be there to support him.