Loyalty to a cheating spouse helps tank Hillary's candidacy
To whom did Huma look for this example? Her mentor Hillary Clinton. “At the end of the day,” Abedin has said of the senior woman’s advice, “every woman should have the ability and the confidence and the choice to make whatever decisions she wants to make that are right for her and not be judged by it.”
Huma Abedin is Hillary Clinton's closest aide, and since graduating from college has held no job that wasn’t connected to this rising American political star. At Huma’s wedding in July 2010, Clinton called her a “second daughter.” That’s how close they are.
Ten months after her marriage to Anthony Weiner, on May 27, 2011, Huma’s husband was caught very publicly cheating on her via sext message. Anthony sent photo of himself, erect in gray undershorts, to a 21-year-old sext partner. By mistake, he bypassed the direct message function on Twitter and sent the pic to all 45,000 of his followers. A conservative blogger and Anthony detractor, Andrew Breitbart, got hold of the errant tweet and publicized it further to the world.
And what did Huma do? At first, she believed Anthony’s story that his Twitter account had been hacked. Within a couple of weeks, though, he told the truth. She considered their unborn child she was carrying, and she stayed with Anthony. She tried to resurrect his political career in 2013, as he ran for New York City mayor. Huma used her connection with Bill and Hillary Clinton to raise money and support for Anthony's mayoral campaign.
Such marital stoicism, in the words of journalist Jennifer Senior. And to whom did Huma look for this example? Her mentor Hillary Clinton. “At the end of the day,” Huma has said of the senior woman’s advice, “every woman should have the ability and the confidence and the choice to make whatever decisions she wants to make that are right for her and not be judged by it.”
To whom did Huma look for this example? Her mentor Hillary Clinton.
Huma stayed with Anthony until August 2016, when a fresh leak of sexts showed that he had not only continued virtual flirtations with female partners but was now referring to the couple’s toddler son, Jordan, as a “chick magnet.” At this point, Huma announced that she was separating from Anthony. But was this decision to break with a cheating man already too late?
The following month, in September 2016, the FBI learned that Anthony had been sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Given the girl's age, this was now a potential crime, and the FBI opened an investigation into Anthony's activity.
Then, with less than two weeks to go before Election Day in on Nov. 8, 2016, FBI Director James Comey announced that this investigation had revealed a new cache of emails, forwarded by Huma on Anthony’s laptop during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the state department. Comey’s revelation reinforced public concern that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was careless. Then, just two days before the election, Comey told Congress that the new emails contained nothing of interest in regard to Clinton—but if he intended to clear the air, Comey’s announcement had the opposite effect. It energized Donald Trump supporters to show up at the polls and vote.
We all know now how that turned out.
"Wife" imitates life
In The Good Wife, the fictional Alicia Florrick sells their beautiful suburban home, downsizes to an urban apartment and begins work at a law firm. Her reasons for staying married to Peter unfold.
The Good Wife debuted in 2009, shortly after the real-life resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Like Spitzer, the CBS series' errant politician Peter Florrick is discovered hiring hookers. District Attorney Florrick goes to jail, not for the sex but on corruption charges, and the show – as its name implies – revolves around how wife Alicia and their two children cope with the crisis. Creators Michelle and Robert King, husband and wife, say they drew inspiration from imagining the life of Silda Wall Spitzer after her husband's downfall. Like Alicia, Silda had given up work as an Ivy League-educated lawyer earlier in the marriage to raise her two children.
As Alicia sells their beautiful suburban home, downsizes to an urban apartment and begins work at a law firm, her reasons for staying married to Peter unfold. First, there's his assumption that once he beats the corruption charges, their life will go "back to normal." His mother, who's now helping the family care for their young teens, tells Alicia, "he's hurting, and he needs you to forgive him." And, naturally, the children want their father to return and their family to be reunited. When Peter finally leaves jail and decides to run again for office, his sharp political adviser tells Alicia he has no chance of winning without her Good Housekeeping stamp of approval. In other words, she can choose to stand by him or deny him his redemption.
As the writers of this show would have it, Alicia/Silda acts out of concern for everyone around her. The insights about her feelings for her husband are rare – at one point, she suggests separate bedrooms, telling Peter she still loves him but that she's been deeply hurt.