A reader responds to my article on NRO today about why in tarnation political wives feel compelled to stand next to their husband at a press conference while he announces his depravity to the world:

I’m not willing to criticize the wife of a politician on the issue of whether she stands there or doesn’t. Certainly not on the issue of whether she remains married or doesn’t – I was always taken aback by those (many of whom at least talk in bumper-sticker terms about “family values”) who wanted Hillary Clinton to divorce Bill. Whatever we may think about when it is appropriate to divorce, it is wrong to encourage a person (and in a bow to real life, I’ll say “a person who is not a close relative or friend”) to dissolve a marriage unless that person is incapable of making competent decisions. What I would like to see, however, is a politician show up without his wife and say: (1) she wanted to stand here with me; (2) I am grateful for her support; but (3) I told her “no” – I’m the one who failed and I’m the one who should bear the public scorn. But that would require that one of these knuckleheads was, emotionally, a grown man.

That strikes me as exactly right. Suffice to say, I don’t expect the next disgraced politician to protect his wife in such a manner..