Today Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, the paper's resident expert on racism and sexism who should be immediately fired by new owner Jeff Bezos, delves deep into the mysteries of the human heart to explain why Huma Abedin continues to stand by Anthony Weiner. He's been there, brother. See, there was this chick, "Linda," who cheated on him "a long time ago."

It happened the night before we were planning to go away for the weekend. In the morning I called her place, but there was no answer. I called again — and then again and again. Worried, I rushed over to her apartment and finding an open window, I climbed in. No one was home. Suddenly, her phone rang. It was my roommate, Neil, who knew where I had gone. Linda had just called, he told me knowingly. She said she had overslept. She said she was at home.

This hazy episode of amorous infidelity (and admission of burglary) ends with Cohen and "Linda" making up and moving on:

I had always known precisely how I would react if she cheated on me. The relationship would end, swiftly, coldly, even sneeringly. My goodbye lines would be scathing, worthy of someone intending to make his living with words. But when she cried, when she begged, when she — let’s be honest here — looked so damned good, I wanted only to remain with this woman.

So damned good. See, Cohen understands why some decide to stay with their (penis-sexting) spouses.

I could tell you of others, men as well as women, but they are not public or historical figures, and they own the rights to their own lives. Still, the story is the same. Something happened, something painful and sometimes mortifying, but the spouse stays, a smile affixed to her face. For the kids. For the place in the country. Out of love. Out of lethargy. Who knows?

Well, Richard Cohen might! And not just because “Linda” was—let’s be honest here—a total babe. In the late 1980s, Cohen had a well-publicized affair with the journalist Kati Marton, who at the time was married to the late World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings. (Marton and Jennings briefly separated, then reconciled, before finally divorcing in 1993.) So why won’t Richard Cohen discuss their marriage, in whose eventual dissolution he played an active, and equally public, role? Richard?

The answer: Cohen likes to treat women not as fully realized human beings, but as things that happen to men. Specifically world-historical men like himself.

[Photo via Associated Press]