Corruption? What corruption? With the McDingbat Defense in flames, next comes the appeal: "Dem coppers dint prove nuttin illegal!"

No, apparently the McDingbats weren't signing
autographs on their way out of the courthouse.

by Ken

It didn't seem like a terribly promising legal strategy. To the charge that ex-VA Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen took gifts and money from an entrepreneur and that in exchange they used the governor's office to promote their benefactor's business, the first line of defense was what I've called the Dingbat Defense, whereby all is supposed to be explained that Governor Bob married himself one heckuva doozie, which made him feel bad. Really, really bad. And what's a guy supposed to do when he finds himself married to a Dingbat Doozie?

Apparently the jury didn't buy it. The verdict Thursday: guilty on most of the charges ("Ex-Va. governor Robert McDonnell guilty of 11 counts of corruption").

Which leaves the appeal, and already we've gotten a taste of what's to come. Okay, so maybe Mrs. Governor Bob accepted some, you know, stuff from this Johnnie guy, who she was infatuated with -- you know how it is with those Dingbat Doozies. We're not saying it happened, mind you, but for the sake of argument, let's say it did. And maybe Johnnie's business interests received certain attention in state government circles. Just say it happened. What the prosecutors didn't prove, can't prove, is that there was a quid pro quo. And Virginia ethics laws, which barely exist, kind of require evidence of that naughty quid pro quo. Like maybe a signed statement from the governor saying, "Johnnie, if you give the Dingbat all that stuff, I swear I'll use the powers of my office to promote your business, Honest Injun."

I'm going to say that this could work. Virginia, far from being an ethical backwater, may be in the vanguard of the New Ethics, courtesy of our one and only Supreme Court. More about this in a moment.

But first --

For some people, it's time to move on to issues like: "Can Robert and Maureen McDonnell’s marriage be saved?" For others, however, the ruins of Governor McDingbat's career resonate more personally. Take washingtonpost.com's Fix-master, Chris Cillizza. Chris is all broken up by the sight, because after all he himself had rated Governor Bob a contender. He begins "The pathetic and predictable end for Bob McDonnell" thusly (links onsite):

In March 2012, I ranked the 10 most likely Republican vice presidential picks for GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Bob McDonnell ranked second on that list. Today -- roughly two and a half years later -- the former Virginia governor was found guilty on 11 charges of public corruption tied to his and his wife's relationship with a donor named Jonnie R. Williams Sr..

While it's always dangerous to call anything in politics "the largest and most rapid collapse in modern memory", the fall from political grace for McDonnell is absolutely stunning -- and ensures his spot in the ignominious annals of disgraced politicians with national ambitions right alongside John Edwards.

What's even more remarkable for me than McDonnell's collapse, however, is the combination of stupidity, avarice and total political blindness that led him to this day.

McDonnell had long been touted to me by Republicans in the know as a rising star. . . .

Ah yes, those indefatigable touters, always touting in the ears of Village people like our Chris. And he's always there to faithfully amplify their touts. Bob McDonnell coulda been a contender!

Of course Governor Bob was always an empty shell, separated from his fellow Virginia grasper "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli, not by ideology, which was solidly crackpot far-right in both cases, but by Governor Bob's blow-dry and his cultivatedly smoother manner. A cookie-cutter crackpot in a nice empty suit.

There is simply no way that any politician who was as allegedly able and ambitious as McDonnell would not understand that the relationship between his family and Williams was deeply inappropriate. It's inconceivable. And yet, that was the case that the McDonnells sought to make in the weeks-long trial that saw almost seven dozen witnesses called.

Still don't get it, eh, Chris? Boy, those touters of yours sure must have done a heckuva touting job.

In the end -- and this is the end although McDonnell has yet to be sentenced -- I am left with a feeling of amazement at the vast gap between how McDonnell was regarded (including by me) as recently as two years ago and who he turned out to be. His judgment, which was touted as one of his best attributes, wound up being one of his worst.

McDonnell's political career has long been over; the jury's decision simply cemented that fact (and then put another two layers of cement on that cement.) But, the professional and personal decline confirmed by a jury of his peers on Thursday remains stunning in its depth and, frankly, dumbness.

Politicians: They're just like us -- for better and, in this case, worse.

Heavy stuff! I think Chris would like to be alone. So let's move on to the appeal, and this troubling question of the missing quid pro quo. As I suggested earlier, the quid pro quo really isn't just a Virginia issue. In case you didn't realize it -- and I sure didn't -- it is now the working constitutional definition of corruption, and in fact, apparently, the only constitutional definition of corruption.

From a legal standpoint, as Jill LePore argued a couple of weeks ago in The New Yorker ("The Crooked and the Dead: Does the Constitution protect corruption?"), the Supreme Court has pretty much closed the book on corruption. She clues us in that from a legal standpoint, the only constitutionally recognizable form of corruption is a straight quid pro quo.

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976, the Buckley being then-NY Sen. James Buckley, a brother of William F.), LePore writes, the Court formally applied the money=speech argument to campaign finance, "ruling that limits on campaign spending are unconstitutional, because they violate the First Amendment, and that limits on campaign contributions are legitimate only if they target one kind of corruption: quid pro quo."

In Buckley, the Court dismissed political equality as a justification for regulating money in politics, even though political equality had, all along, been the point of campaign-finance legislation; it also replaced Congress’s definition of corruption with James Buckley’s definition of corruption. In Citizens United, [corruption-fighting NYS gubernatorial challenger Zephyr] Teachout argues, the Court did something even stranger: it redefined undue influence, which for a very long time had been seen as a form of corruption, and destructive of democracy, as “responsiveness,” and foundational to democracy. “The fact that speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean these officials are corrupt,” Justice Kennedy wrote, citing his opinion in McConnell v. F.E.C.: “Democracy is premised on responsiveness.”

And there we are. Those plutocratic citizens who stuff pols' pockets with cash, and the pols who accept it and respond accordingly -- they're not engaging in corruption, they're reenacting the miracle of democratic responsiveness. You can say the Supreme Court majority is dead wrong, as dumb and deceitful as any scumbag-hoolligan cretins, but the reality is that when it comes to the Constitution, what they say goes.

So for the dawning election cycle, we can look forward to a growing stream of articles about the flow of money into the coffers of ever-more-"responsive" pols. But all we're going to hear is talk. That dribble of talk is pretty certain to be drowned out by its much more muscular Big Brother in the "speech" family.

I don't know whether Bob McDingbat's appeal is going to keep him out of the slammer, and in his case I suppose there's a certain comfort to be derived from the shambles of his once-shiny political career and the mess of his life. You could say that his mistake was thinking too small, and settling for paltry handouts from a marginal crank. Come to think of it, I think that's what I will say.

One last piece of unfinished business --

UM, HOW'S IT COMING, CHRIS?

Feeling any better? I know this Bob and Mo McDingbat business has come as quite a shock. What's that? You say, "Bob and Mo McWho?"

That's our boy, Chris! Politicians are just like us, sort of, and the whole thing never happened.

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