Some of you telephone me with suggestions for new columns. This was surely true after I wrote the one about the wonderful life the intellectual conservative Bill Buckley lived. Now you want me to describe the loyalty of political wives who stand just behind the right shoulders of political scamps as their husbands apologize for some piece of scandalhood or breach of trust they've committed while holding an office of political responsibility.

These gray-faced, unblinking women, solemn and pained, put their husbands to shame as the men babble away their carefully worded "mea culpas," their apologies (sort of), their ju.jpgications.

What kind of special training have these women attained to be so supportive? When did the tradition start? Where does it say in their marriage vows that this duty comes from the wedding ceremonies, I've asked clergymen. "In sickness and in health?" What?

Wives of highly placed statesmen should be "steel magnolias." Margaret Thatcher, Britain's greatest 20th century prime minister, "had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula." Can you imagine her standing back there submissively while her decent, rich husband crawfished around something idiotic he'd done? She was the "iron lady," to continue my metallic analogies? It was glorious seeing her at her dear friend's funeral (Ronald Reagan's) with Gorbachev sitting nearby.

Who can forget poor Silda Spitzer standing there the other day while her ineffable husband, N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, preened through his 2-minute, 41-second "Gettysburg address." Why would anyone ever want to be in the same room with this creep again? I mean "Eliot," not Silda?

There's been lots of psychobabble written about the extra drives of male politicians. Of the extra temptations that crop up in ornate buildings or legislative hallways and closets (think about Bill Clinton and Monica). All that money, power, influence. Sens. Vitter, Craig, Packwood, Hart. Congressmen Frank, Foley. Had enough? I have. Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxxe. Shame on the whole pack of you!

We lived in New Orleans in the 1950s when our governor was ol' Earl Long 10 years after Huey "Kingfish" Long had been assassinated. Gov. Earl took up with the dynamic ecdysiast (strip teaser) Blaze Starr in the French Quarter, 'til one night he came home to the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge, 80 miles up the river, only to find that his wife, our first lady, Miss Blanche, had turned on all the outside lights and locked all the doors. There he stood exposed to the world, pounding away with all the antique door knockers, and yelling, "G-d damnit, Blanche, let me in. You're making a fool outta me," while the papparazzi were clicking away with their cameras. Way to go, Blanche! She was the clear winner.

If you want to be a writer you must have extra sensory perception. I do try. When N.Y. Gov. Spitzer gave his three-minute resignation, I was fascinated just watching his wife. So was everybody else in the room. I thought she was triumphant, really one-upping that creepy husband of hers. She represented herself as a crushed, defeated lovely woman, standing behind his right shoulder. We weren't watching two people, we were gazing at a close-knit pair of people, he giving his carefully prepared speech, trying to be noble. Nobody cared. She never stepped out of character, protecting her hearth and home and three teenage daughters. His sophisticated bookkeeping, hotel rooms. logistics, airlines. The governor of the great state of New York. So sad.

Attorney Austin Cunningham has been the president of five business companies and in 1988 was named Outstanding Elder Citizen of the Year for South Carolina.

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