Maybe that Hillary Clinton/Huma Abedin conversation really did go sort of as we imagined. Like her boss and mentor before her, Abedin’s going to stay with her husband in the wake of an embarrassing sex scandal — and she doesn’t want him to resign from office, either, according to the Post. It seems Weiner wasn’t just spinning when he told reporters, “We have no intention of splitting over this. We have been through a lot together. We will weather this. I love her. She loves me.”
After Monday’s press conference (at which Abedin was conspicuously absent, declining to play the clichéd role of the sad-eyed wife), the couple went to dinner with friends and reportedly stayed the night at a hotel in the city. Reportedly, she initially believed Weiner’s hacking story and “reacted with sadness and anger but remained composed, according to a person familiar with the matter,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
Abedin’s cool circumspection is part of what has helped her create her own political profile, like wronged wives Elizabeth Edwards and Clinton before her — but Abedin established her brand and career before her marriage, unlike the other two. So it’s all the more striking that she’s recommitting to helping Weiner rehab his own, when she has an easier out, perhaps, than other women faced with a similar dilemma, and yet makes an odd kind of sense: She built that career, after all, as a post-scandal behind-the-scenes operative, which should certainly come in handy now.
A Private Life, Tested [WSJ]
Weiner on Wife Support [NYP]
Huma Abedin Still Supports Weiner, Tries to Salvage His Career [ABC News]
