The sad, shameful and sudden fall of Eliot Spitzer is grist for so many mills that it will defy the 24 hour news cycle; the commentariat will grind away on the private and public agony of the disgraced crusader longer than your average scandal.  It is just so rich with irony, so inexplicable, so salacious and the humiliation of the man so profound that it is simply irresistible.

The agony, of course, is not Eliot Spitzer’s alone.  There, by his side, through two short but certainly excruciating public statements, stood his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer.   The chorus of disbelief heard immediately.  Most incredulous were other women. Why?  Why would this accomplished, intelligent woman stand by a man who had plunged her into the misery of his indiscretions?  Conjecture and comment from the talking heads and knowing but typically anonymous quotes from sources supposedly close toMs.Wall Spitzer are the hottest sidebar to the scandal story.  (more…)