Now comes reporting that raises the story to a new level of outrage: Williams last year gave $70,000 — supposedly a loan — to a corporation owned by McDonnell and his sister; plus $50,000 to Maureen McDonnell in 2011, and $10,000 as a wedding present this year to another McDonnell daughter.
As astonishing is the governor’s technocratic defense: that he is complying with the letter of Virginia disclosure rules, which do not require reporting of gifts to family members. “To, after the fact, impose some new requirements on an official,” McDonnell told a Norfolk radio show, “obviously wouldn’t be fair.”
But gifts and entanglements like these are simply wrong, a violation of the governor’s duty to citizens, whatever the rules. That McDonnell doesn’t get this basic point makes him unfit for office. Obviously.Rethuglican officials in the Commonwealth are doing an up-tempo version of the Virginia reel to distance themselves from the guy some in the party wanted to run as One Percent Mitt's VP. That includes uber right-wing Rethuglican Atty. Gen. Ken "Cooch" Cuccinelli, who's running for the Governorship this year, and fears even the slightest connection to the scandal. Given Cooch's extremist record, that should almost be the least of his concerns.
(Photo: "Blowdry Bob" McDonnell - just leave the cash in plain brown envelopes, please.)
