While her husband, NY Governor Eliot Spitzer muttered forced apologies for betraying her, mindlessly gambling with their life together and humiliating her and their children before the entire universe, she stared away, occasionally trying to look at him as she was supposed to do, even attempting, perhaps by reflex, to smile a bit as he spoke.

What in God’s name she was doing there is a mystery. Except that it’s her role as a political wife, and in the U.S. the role is still, mystifyingly, taken seriously.

Last Tuesday John McCain finally succeeded in sewing up the nomination everyone knew he would win. He had barely left the stage, triumphant, when a CBS reporter stopped him in a hall and started firing questions for a 60 Minutes feature. As he responded, saying nothing particularly new or interesting, his wife Cindy stood dutifully at his side, mute, the same fixed smile she’s worn for months plastered on her face.

There was no need for her to be there. She could have kept walking, on to the limo, or the champagne party, or wherever it is presidential nominees go when they’ve just succeeded in seizing the crown of their party. Instead she stood and did the wifely gaze, fidgeting a bit as the reporter ignored her and asked her husband the same old questions. Source...