Is United States v. McDonnell going to be another Citizens Union disaster? The Supreme Court is poised to answer that question soon. For those persons who believe that public corruption, influence peddling, and pay-to-play are bad for democracy and bad for good government, they should be very worried.

So, that happened: Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R) career as a professional defendant has finished its first big story arc, with he and wife Maureen being convicted of 20 counts of corruption between them.