Content: scandal

Summary:

In this country, whenever a public official is caught behaving immorally and/or illegally, he is duty-bound (after many hours of soul-searching) to appear before the press to answer the scurrilous charges made against him. He—these miscreants invariably possess a Y chromosome—stands before a battery of microphones explaining his actions and promising never to repeat them while simultaneously denying he ever committed them in the first place. Standing beside and slightly behind this feckless office holder is his wife. Her head is held high, her expression is benign. She gazes up at her errant husband with a brave, though sometimes tearful smile, and nods agreeably when he loudly proclaims his innocence. She frowns ever so slightly when he decries those who have slandered, entrapped, or otherwise persecuted him. By sharing the dais with this loathsome individual, she subjects herself to absolute humiliation before the entire world. Why?

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