It’s a pattern we see all too often these days, political wives stunned, but standing by their humiliated men while they are either accused of sexual improprieties or associated with same by innuendo.

It happens to the creme de la creme of our political leaders, Presidents, Governors, Senators, Representives and wanabee presidents.

And there standing alongside the humiliated politician is the stunned wife.

Why they do it is not all that clear.

The latest to stand by her man is Silda Wall Spitzer, wife of Democratic Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer who has been accused of paying for sex with a high-priced call girl.

Spitzer was identified as Client #9 and was allegedly heard on a federal wiretap arranging to pay money for a New York prostitute.

He appeared with his wife at a media event yesterday and said, “I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself,” said the 48-year-old father of three teenage girls.  “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

He did not take any questions from the media.

According to Fox News Silda’s closest friends advised her to take the kids and run.

But she stood by her man.  Perhaps it’s that line in Tammy Wynette’s song, “But if you love him you’ll forgive him . . .Even though he’s hard to understand.”

Only last month Cindy McCain stood by her man, presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, who the New York Times had strongly suggested there was an inappropriate relationship between him and a female lobbyist, including favors for her clients.  The Washington Post published a similar story.  The Times story said top McCain aids became “convinced the relationship had become romantic.”

At a news conference, McCain denied any romantic relationship and insisted he had never done anything to betray public trust.

Cindy stood by her man commented on the allegation and defended McCain.

According to the Associated Press these scenes have played out many times:

There was Suzanne Craig who stood silently as her husband, Rep. Larry Craig, denied last summer that he had propositioned a man in the stall of an airport bathroom.

Louisiana Rep. David Vitter apologized last summer after being linked to an escort service.  When asked if he had a sexual relationship, his wife, Wendy took the podium and called her husband “my best friend” and saying that forgiveness “is the right choice for me.”  Years ago it was reported that she said she would act more like knife-wielding Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary Clinton if her husband strayed.

Dina Matos McGreevey stood humilated, next to her husband, then Gov. McGreevey when he announced in 2004 that he was “a gay American” and would resign.  He stepped down rather than face a $50 million blackmail threat from a male former lover.  Dina McGreevey wrote a tell-all book after they divorced.

Lee Hart, after husband Gary Hart was linked to model Donna Rice during his presidential campaign, insisted to reporters in 1987: “When Gary says nothing happened, nothing happened.”

And there was the most widely publicized sexual tyrists when Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is now battling Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, insisted to CBS’s “60 Minutes” during the 1992 campaign, “I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man Like Tammy Wynette.”  No, she wasn’t standing there, she was sitting there.

And of course six years later Hillary again remained cool at a news conference where President Bill Clinton declared of Monica Lewinsky: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Clinton was impeached by the House for perjury and obstruction of justice as a result of the Monic Lewinsky affair, but was acquitted by the Senate.

What we are talking about here is often referred to as the world’s oldest profession and apparently there will never be a shortage of clients, nor women who will stand by their man.

PS The Emperors Club VIP was the high-end prostitution ring that Spitzer negotiated with for the fling. The Internet site was disabled today, “due to high volume of traffic.”