Fun and games in Virginia

A Political Marriage

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

A Washington Post article about the creepy relationship between Gov. Robert McDonnell of Virginia and Jonnie R. Williams, Sr., the head of a company called Star Scientific, offers an unusually good look at how money can buy political influence.

The Post offers this rather pithy summation: “a relationship that has included rides on Williams’s corporate jet, personal gifts to the first family and efforts by the governor and his wife to promote the company.”

But the most vivid — and juicy — example of this special bond is that Mr. Williams paid for the food at the Mr. McDonnell’s daughter’s wedding. $15,000 worth. Mr. McDonnell did not disclose the gift.

Not only that: Mr. McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, flew to Florida three days before the wedding (how nice it must be to have so much free time before your daughter’s wedding) and gave an endorsement for a dietary supplement being developed by Star Scientific called Antabloc, which Mr. Williams hopes will be helpful to people with Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis and to his company.

(More here.)