Sometimes, they are accompanied by their wives; other times, the cheese stands alone. Here are the 10 best recent press conferences featuring adulterous politicians, and why they were awesome.


1. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
He cried, he apologized to his kids, his wife, the state, his best friend and his in-laws. He then proceeded to give a play-by-play of the entire romance, including when he started sleeping with her.

Bonus points: In an effort to avoid using his mistress's name, Sanford went for much of the press conference without using a gender specific pronoun, causing many people to speculate that he was gay.


2. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey
"I am a Gay American." What more can you say?

Bonus points: For doping his hysterical wife up so she smiled the entire time.


3. Idaho Senator Larry Craig
After having pled guilty to soliciting a man for foot-tapping bathroom sex, Larry Craig pulled a Shaggy at his press conference.

Bonus points: Even his wife gave him the "WTF?" look during his press conference.


4. Louisiana Senator David Vitter
David Vitter totally didn't pay a prostitute to change his diapers, yo.

Bonus points: He did let his wife take over the press conference that he called to respond to allegations that he'd utilized an escort service.


5. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer called a press conference to admit that while prosecuting escort services, he wasn't working for his constituents as much as helping eliminate the competition to his escort service of choice. He did have the good sense to resign, though.

Bonus points: No one knows if his balls survived intact long after he and his wife left the podium. From her look, we're guessing not so much.


6. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards
Appearing alone in a TV interview, Edwards attempted to flirt with interviewer Bob Woodruff, smiled and seemed less than entirely shameful about his conduct, which is the whole point of holding one of these.


7. President Bill Clinton
He totally did have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. And he totally did look like a little kid caught red-handed.


8. New York Governor David Paterson
Paterson confessed to mutual marital infidelity, earning him his look from his wife. He also admitted to conducting it in a Quality Inn.


9. Nevada Senator John Ensign
For all that Ensign's affair involves a campaign staffer married to one of Ensign's own Senate staffers while Ensign was separated and allegations of blackmail, his actual confession was a snore-fest.


10: Speaker-Elect and Louisiana Congressman Bob Livingston
Having spent months inveighing against Bill Clinton's infidelities and how they made him unfit for office, Livingston confessed to all House Republicans that he, too, was a cheat. He was then replaced by notorious philanderer, Newt Gingrich. But it's no fun until someone cries.

Barack Obama gave his Don't-Call-It-A-State-Of-The-Union State of the Union speech last night, which you can read here but I will summarize as follows: economy bad, America strong, gonna get better with your help and money from Congress, inspiration, Hope, Change, hey Michelle! and fin. You know, typical Obama speech. It was followed up by a bedtime story from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as read to a class of 2nd graders. Even though the post-SOTU speeches are generally universally terrible and anyone who wants a permanent place on the national stage ought to know better than to agree to give one, even Republicans agree that Jindal's was worse than normal and it didn't help that he referenced the federal government response to Katrina as a positive thing and then gave props to a racist sheriff. Eric Holder, who was watching in an undisclosed location in case of catastrophe, was probably pissed that he was in an undisclosed location watching it since the rest of the Cabinet probably wasn't even home yet and didn't have to suffer like him.

But wait! There was other news! Like the fact that the White House let it slip just before Obama's speech that the Administration is going to do a 19 instead of a 16 month pull-out from Iraq and it is going to leave about 50,000 troops there even when they're done pulling out (which does, unfortunately, tend to be how the Withdrawal Method works, after all). Illinois Senator Dick Durbin announced that he'd suggested Roland Burris resign and Burris refused because he really likes being Senator and hasn't been charged with anything... which is just like how David Vitter likes being Senator and didn't want to resign over getting caught banging hookers, only David Vitter doesn't think the scandals are the same because Roland Burris isn't getting laid.

In the meantime, the Senate finally coughed up a confirmation for Hilda Solis to be Labor Secretary and a bunch of Republicans remained grumpy about it. Janet Napolitano isn't going to play with your fear of terrorism by saying the word "terrorism" constantly, which Republican Congressman Peter King of Long Island thinks is a terrible thing because, how else is he supposed to get re-elected if not by beating the 9/11 drum that Rudy so helpfully left for him?

Lastly, People is reporting that the White House puppy is coming in April, following spring break. Michelle's leaning toward a Portuguese water dog, but they haven't picked out a name yet, so start your suggestions below.

• Sarah Palin knows that John McCain's robocalls are pissing people off and she wouldn't do them if she were running the campaign. However, since she's not running things, she dutifully spoke into the robocall-making microphone like the big boys told her to. [CNN, TPM Election Central]
• Also, in North Carolina, black people exercising their franchise is "cheating" and white people trying to harass them into leaving the polls and not voting is just sickening. [Washington Times]
• But go watch some McCain supporters tell some fear mongers to fuck off at a Virginia rally, you might feel slightly better. [Attackerman]
• And then just imagine the sweet bliss of an Obama SNL appearance on November 1st. [Mollygood]

• The fuzz made their first voter fraud arrest of the 2008 election season. He's a Republican. The Bush Administration smacked their foreheads and said "D'oh!" in unison. [LA Times]
• Speaking of, remember that funny video of Homer being unable to cast a vote for Obama because the machine wouldn't let him? Yeah, that's actually what's happening in West Virginia right now. That shit's only funny when it's not true. [Politico, Charleston Gazette]
• In the great "boxers or briefs" debate of oh-eight, John Kerry might go commando and, slightly more horrifyingly, he joked that John McCain wears Depends. McCain probably gets them black market off of David Vitter, slightly worn. [Politicker MA]
• And in possibly the best quote of the day, in reference to everyone's favorite McCain debate picture, The Independent says: "If everyone thinks you're a bit old, and a bit weird, it's best not to do what makes you look rickety, undignified and mad as a sack of badgers." Badgers! [The Independent]

Within 24 hours, I snapped and replied to some unwitting e-mailer that I found the comments disgusting and that what we really needed to think about was who we were trying to convince — and what we were trying to convince those people of. Well, if the polls that show women flocking to the McCain ticket and the response she's engendering from conservatives is any sign, we've convinced some people of one thing — that many feminists are feminist only to other feminists.

Now, naturally, few of these conservatives are exactly noted feminists themselves, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a Wasilla mayor) to smell an opportunity to marginalize feminists or point out hypocrisies obvious enough to drive a wedge between liberal feminists and the very women that many of us have been trying to convince to vote for Barack Obama. Take Michelle Malkin, for example — hardly the kind of opinionated conservabloggier that I tend to agree with. Last week, she pointed out the opprobrium that rained down upon Sarah Palin's head for working late into her pregnancy, returning to work early and staying in a demanding job while parenting a special-needs child. She also pointed out that plenty of it came from female journalists who themselves have children and extremely demanding careers. Of course, she called them hacks and water-carriers for Obama, but that's Malkin for you — and it doesn't make her point less valid or accessible to the women that Obama needs on his side.

Then there's noted feminist scholar Jonah Goldberg, who manages to decry sexism and feminist hypocrisy even as he compares feminists to "stuck pigs" and says that one might resemble "a childless feminist who looks like a Bulgarian weightlifter in drag." But, he also hits up Gloria Steinem's OpEd, Cintra Wilson's screed and professor/columnist Wendy Doniger's truly offensive statement that Palin's "greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman." Because, really, there's no better way to win over independent women voters than to question their gender because of their political or religious beliefs. Women on the left should not be denying one another's womanhood because of disagreements about abortion and religion anymore than we should be allowing men like Rush Limbaugh to decide who is or is not a feminist. The problem with Goldberg's piece is not his glaringly offensive stereotypes and generalizations about feminists, it's that he can say all kinds of offensive things about mannish, childless women and it's still only barely as shocking as a feminist saying a person cannot be a Republican and a woman at the same time. And the latter bit is the only thing that's going to get a lot of traction in Central Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and Michigan among the women that have swung every election for the last two decades.

Libertarian Cathy Young (who really could never annoy me as much as Goldberg or Malkin) writes a far more reasoned and compelling piece today in the Wall Street Journal asking why feminists hate Sarah Palin seemingly beyond reason. She hits some of the same shock quotes as Goldberg before her (and me before him, actually) and says that, from her perspective, Palin's "pro-life feminism [and] small-government, individualist feminism" is more attractive than a kind of feminism that requires government intervention to achieve equality. That's the kind of argument that will play well with independent women voter. It also makes its point about the feminist "hatred" of Palin without reverting to stereotypes about looks and doesn't dismiss the notion that choice is a concern for American women. This is far, far more convincing to the people that need to be convinced — you know, those 30-40 percent of voters in the middle — than arguing that Sarah Palin isn't "really" a woman.

Finally, even Elle's political blogger, Lucy Morrow Caldwell, gets in on the action, chastising South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman Carol Fowler for saying that Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion" (even as she mucks up Fowler's position in the party). Caldwell also says that no one ever suggested about Obama that "his race was the only reason he'd become a candidate in the first place," a statement that is not entirely true, as Geraldine Ferraro no doubt remembers. But few people are going to take the time to point out these inaccuracies in the politics blog of a fashion magazine, and the issue of feminists "bashing" Palin for gendered reasons allows Caldwell to gloss over the part where she herself would be "more cautious [than Palin] on certain foreign policy fronts" in favor of hitting up the mean, mean feminists.

It's not like I don't understand where the anger is coming from. I have heard often enough from liberal women that they don't understand how women can even be Republican...without, of course, ever actually asking one and listening to the answer. I also understand that, in the absence of comprehensive public record of Palin's stances on issues like pay equity or government-funded childcare, it's easy enough to attribute McCain's (bad) stances on those issues to her, especially since, as his running mate, they in effect are her new stances on those issues — and it's easy to conflate hating her positions with hating her as a person. For many women, she seems to be trying to have it both ways, to trumpet her family values and her careerism in a way that Republicans have often bashed other women for doing.

But, most of all, I think the attacks are coming from a place of insecurity that Palin (and all that comes with her) might soften the McCain campaign enough for him to triumph in November. And so if we rail against her, if we play the game of politics by their supposed rules and castigate her for the things conservatives have castigated liberal women for for decades (see: Hillary Clinton) then maybe they won't vote for her and him. The problem is that each party stands by its own hypocrites (see: Congressmen John Mutha and Jim Moran on the left and Senators David Vitter and Larry Craig on the right), so all we're doing by bashing her is inspiring a defense by her ideological compatriots and re-branding feminism as something that defends only liberal women against bias (and that denies a woman's womanliness if she dares to disagree politically, which is straight out of the Republican play book). That's not my feminism and that's not my idea of equality — and, for a lot of moderate women, it's not theirs either.

Polls Show Big Shift To McCain Among White Women [Reuters]
Is Sarah Palin a Feminist? Friday Feminist Fuck NO. [Feministing]
Sisterhood of the Protected Female Liberal Journalists [Michelle Malkin]
Feminist Army Aims Its Canons at Palin [National Review]
All Beliefs Welcome, Unless They are Forced on Others [Newsweek]
Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin [Wall Street Journal]
Right Angles [Elle]
S.C. Dem Chair: Palin Primary Qualification Is She Hasn't Had An Abortion [Politico]
Ferraro’s Obama Remarks Become Talk of Campaign [NY Times]

Commenting on the Clinton scandal, Wendy Vitter told the media in 2000, "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he [Vitter] does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Before deciding to stand by the president, the current New York senator had denied she would do any such thing during her husband's first run for office in 1992 amid allegations that he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

"I'm not some little woman, standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette," she told CBS's "60 Minutes."

The Vitters, like the Clintons, remain married.

Because women's bathrooms are simply too crowded and gross and tapping one's foot while in one is already a universally-accepted way to convey the sentiment, "OMG I am about to urinate down my pant leg; please please please please let me cut in front of you just this once?"

Craig's Wife Stands By Her Man [ABC News]