Jenny Sanford Joins the Cheated-On Wives Club

Jenny Sanford told reporters she was "being a mother" while her itinerant husband was missing in action. When he surfaced and confessed to adultery, but obfuscated their marital status (QUESTION: Are you separated from the first lady? MR. SANFORD: I -- I don't know how you want to define that. I mean, I'm here and she's there), his wife handed reporters a written statement to clarify: "I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago."

Jenny Sanford is a problem solver. GreenvilleOnline.com describes her "whirlwind management style" when Sanford lost his chief of staff in 2003 and she stepped in: "a jolt of rapid-fire talking and high-heels walking."

This Other Woman matter is a big problem for her family, and she's put on her big girl panties to see how they can fix it. The Sanfords have been a team for a long time. ("She has stood by my side in campaign after campaign after campaign, and ...throughout the lives that we've built together.") They have those four cute boys -- Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake.

I predict, whether or not the married couple reconciles, Jenny Sanford and her children will be OK. She's young, focused, accomplished, attractive, and has a supportive network. No matter what happens between the couple she will be adjusting her world view. She has many models of cheated-on political wives to choose from, for inspiration. The last first lady in Jenny Sanford's position, Silda Wall Spitzer of New York, rose above the humiliation client No. 9 had brought to their doorstep and stood firm at her husband's side. Mrs. Ensign in Las Vegas is still weathering the storm. But my personal favorite, Hillary Clinton, blamed a "vast right wing conspiracy" and later ran for Senate.

In The Daily Beast, Tina Brown, a woman who knows about personal reinvention, thinks Jenny caved. Brown frowns on Jenny Sanford's professed willingness, in time, "to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back ... with a true spirit of humility and repentance." Brown says it lets down the betrayed political spouses (including "fuming deity Elizabeth Edwards") who walked before her.