It wasn't so long ago that the wife of disgraced South Carolina politician Mark Sanford was hailed as a role model for maligned wives everywhere. While her husband couldn't seem to stop blabbering about his Argentinian "love story," as he called it, Jenny Sanford seemed to embody a kind of dignified strength. But in an interview in this month's Vogue, Jenny Sanford's gracious — or nauseating — capacity for forgiveness left some women commentators wondering if Mrs. Sanford is the strong, independent role model they thought she was.

• She's Not a Heroine, says Ria Misra at Politics Daily. If she were, she'd be more concerned with her own happiness as well as that of her husband's. "After all, as his interminable teary-eyed press conferences on his doomed love attest, Mark Sanford already seems to be monitoring his own happiness quite well." Misra's colleague Bonnie Goldstein was a bit kinder, but couldn't help notice the flattering treatment Sanford receieved at the hands of Vogue. "Returning the favor for being given great access, the fashion magazine allows Sanford the delicious high road. (Elizabeth Edwards, take note.)"

• She's Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes, writes Anna N. at Gawker. "Jenny Sanford certainly didn't invent the stereotype that men live for work and women live for kids, but this "old-fashioned woman," as she calls herself, is certainly perpetuating it — and Johnson (unsurprisingly, since this is Vogue) doesn't interrogate the notion at all."
  

• She's Trying to Save Her Husband's Political Career, says Jessica Grose at Double X. Grose wonders if Sanford, "has an ulterior motive with presenting herself as a 50s throwback. Perhaps she's trying to save her husband's ailing career and her family's legacy."

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