The Fall of “Governor Family Values”

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow did a fairly outstanding job this evening of reporting on the multiple guilty verdicts handed down in the corruption trial of Republican former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. She retraces McDonnell’s rise as a “family values” politician, a graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian university, and a potential running mate for 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, then follows the declining arc of his political career, culminating in a recent legal defense that found this supposed great upholder of traditional marriage mounting a legal defense based on scapegoating his own wife.

READ MORE: “Virginia’s McDonnell Guilty on 11 Counts of Corruption,” by Steve Benen (The Maddow Blog); “Bob McDonnell’s Shocking Stupidity: How Could a Politician Have Been This Dumb?” by Jim Newell (Salon).