Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I know that I'm not supposed to....

....wish harm on anyone, but I cannot help hoping that Mrs. Spitzer is inspired by Dick Armey's response to the question of what he would be doing if he'd done what Bill Clinton had done to Hillary. I now for sure that I'd have trouble convicting her for that if I were on the jury.

At the very least, it would be refreshing to see a politician come out there with a black eye or two and without his wife, and flat out tell the truth and offer his resignation and a real apology.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's interesting about this particular case is the high degree of unabashed Schadenfreude I have seen many people (myself included) indulging in here, whereas in other similar cases, the reaction was merely one of mild distastes and "not again."

The explanation isn't hard to find, though -- Spitzer's entire career has been self-designed to be a crusade against every form of moral evil (where morality is defined by leftist envy-ism.) It's hard not to see a certain comeuppance here, and within certain limits, I think it's even legitimate it to see it as a genuine instance of sowing and reaping, with very little to grieve over -- though I do think that actually rejoicing in the evil of it is not a Christian response.

Anonymous said...

There's a certain frustration in this case, and the Clintons' and other in which wives trot up next to their husbands at press conferences and declare their undying loyalty.

That is, it's always played up as a wonderful example of the sanctity of marriage.

But in at least some of these cases, it's hard to keep from feeling that it's rather the opposite -- it's not that marriage is valued so highly that "even adultery" doesn't destroy it, it's that it's valued low enough that adultery is tolerable with a bit of backbone. It's something of a conundrum to feel, at the same time, that a wife who will stick by her husband even in the face of adultery is in many situations to be honored, and also to feel that in other situations, it's not really all that honorable at all because neither of them respect themselves and/or the marriage enough to feel that anything crucial has been violated.

Bike Bubba said...

I guess what ticks me off is that he's obviously trying to pull a Clinton/Craig/McGreevey/etc.. and have his little fling (s?) and get off scot-free--not even a real confession or apology.

For that alone, he deserves at least a shiner or two, plus a good swift kick in such a place as to keep him out of the brothel for a while.

Mark said...

Biblically, aren't these the situations where we _should_ see the wife leaving? And then, possibly divorcing if there is no repentance?

Hmmm... Going to dig up a Freakonomics article and put it on my blog about the perceived value of a fling now versus a familial loss at a later time. :^/

Anonymous said...

Biblically, divorce for unrepentant adultery is entirely appropriate. But it's hard to judge from any distance short of an intimate relationship with the family, whether things have come to that point, or not. So I'm willing to cut these public figures some slack on the grounds that it could be an appropriate example of true forgiveness, while still maintaining that the signs are that it is more likely that something less admirable is going on.

Gino said...

maybe the wife knew and was glad to not have to put out for him?