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Tag: maureen mcdonnell
A Rough Month In America For Women

A Rough Month In America For Women

Mark Sanford’s heralded engagement to Maria Belen Chapur is apparently over. The rep. from South Carolina released the news to America through a Facebook post. That’s how Chapur found out, too.

Gallantry has been in especially short supply this month. Prominent American men have been roughing up their women in spectacularly public ways — ranging from coldly calculated mind games to a knockout punch.

September opened with former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s unsuccessful attempt to swat away felony charges by making his wife take the entire rap for rampant corruption. The governor’s lawyers smeared Maureen as “manipulative,” “unpredictable,” “deceptive” and, most famously, a “nut bag.”

For a taste of the media response, Google “Maureen McDonnell under the bus.”

McDonnell had long touted his traditional values, pasting pictures of his photogenic wife and children on every available surface. His master’s thesis was on family breakdown and contained the line, “As the family goes, so goes the nation.”

Guess family values week is over.

To think, many Republicans had put McDonnell on their list of potential presidential candidates.

As for Sanford, an antiseptic breakup note marked the latest in a series of callous behaviors toward women and just plain weirdness. Recall that as South Carolina governor, Sanford sneaked off to Argentina to visit Chapur, a TV journalist there, for nearly a week. He told his staff that he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” and could not be reached. Recall that his disgusted wife threw him out of the house and initiated divorce.

To pretty up the adulterous activity for his socially conservative voters, Sanford framed the affair as an unstoppable joining of soulmates. He promised to put aright the perceived wrong by marrying Chapur. And he layered on top of that an inspirational journey of redemption, starring himself.

“I’ve experienced how none of us goes through life without mistakes,” he said in a campaign ad when running for Congress. “But in their wake, we can learn a lot about grace, a God of second chances, and be the better for it.”

Two years went by, and Chapur eventually demanded an actual wedding date, which he wouldn’t make.

“I think that I was not useful to him anymore,” she told an interviewer. “He made the engagement thing four months before the elections.”

The ex-wife is now trying to restrict Sanford’s visits with their 15-year-old son. She also wants the court to order the congressman to have psychological counseling and take anger management classes.

True to form, Sanford is now blaming his ex-wife’s custody fight for his inability to wed Chapur. Don’t blame the ex-wife, Chapur responded.

To think, many Republicans had put Sanford on their list of potential presidential candidates.

To be clear, narcissistic abuse of women is hardly a Republican monopoly. Consider the Democrats’ 2004 vice-presidential nominee, John Edwards — who declared devotion to his cancer-ridden wife on the campaign trail while fathering a child with a tawdry filmmaker.

Between the McDonnell and Sanford stories emerged the video of football star Ray Rice punching his girlfriend, now wife, cold in an elevator and then dragging her limp body out. The now-former Baltimore Ravens running back saw no need to blame the woman for provoking the attack. She did it for him.

Say this for the Rice assault: It was straightforward brutality. It happened in a moment and without burdening the public with baroque explanations. The victim knew exactly what had happened to her, once she came to.

But what are Rice’s prospects of getting a second chance? The practitioner of psychological cruelty tends to be slicker than the man with the fist. And the businessmen running the NFL are a tougher sell than the electorate.

Meanwhile, September isn’t over.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: PoliticalActivityLaw via Flickr

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Former Va. Gov. McDonnell, Wife Pin Acquittal Hopes On Bad Marriage In Corruption Trial

Former Va. Gov. McDonnell, Wife Pin Acquittal Hopes On Bad Marriage In Corruption Trial

By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

It was Marilyn Monroe who famously noted that it was better to be unhappy alone than to be unhappy with someone — advice that was seemingly ignored by Virginia’s once-golden couple, former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, who are on trial on corruption charges.

The trial resumed on Wednesday in Richmond, Va., after opening defense statements this week painted a portrait of an unhappy, dysfunctional couple so caught up in the miseries of a challenged marriage that they couldn’t get it together enough to conspire in any fashion, let alone corruptly.

The former chief executive of the state that has been a cradle for presidents and for legendary great political thinkers longer than there has been a United States is pinning his hopes of avoiding a long stretch in prison on his broken marriage.

In January, McDonnell, a onetime aspirant for a top spot on the GOP national ticket, and his wife, were charged in a 14-count indictment alleging they had a corrupt relationship with Jonnie R. Williams, the head of a dietary supplement company. The McDonnells accepted favors, including more than $165,000 in loans, posh designer attire, vacations, and a Rolex watch from Williams in exchange for promoting his business, Star Scientific.

Both McDonnells have denied the charges. Williams is expected to be the star witness against them in a trial that is likely to last more than a month.

In this age of social media and never-ending gossip masquerading as news you can use, the shenanigans of the rich and the self-proclaimed famous are too often an open book. But in politics, the relationship between an elected mayor, governor, or even a president (all usually a man) and his first lady is often no more interesting than the tiny couple atop a wedding cake — and just as real.

The scandals, misadventures, and even other liaisons don’t usually become public knowledge until historians, rather than journalists, ply their craft — as seen in the case of Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, for example.

But the marriage between the McDonnells is at the heart and center of the defense this time around.

Maureen’s lawyer, William A. Burck, told jurors that his client had a crush on Williams but was sadly duped. According to media reports, including a blog from The Washington Post, Burck said Maureen and Bob McDonnell were just pretending to be a happy couple.

“They were barely on speaking terms,” Burck said.

John Brownlee, the former governor’s defense attorney, said that Bob McDonnell will testify on his own behalf and will read an email begging his wife to make things right.

“It fell upon blind eyes and deaf ears because that evening, Maureen was distracted by other interests,” Brownlee said.

The long hours McDonnell spent at his job made Maureen angry. “She hated him for not being around, for serving the public night and day and not having anything left for her,” Brownlee said.

The disconnect between the McDonnells made it impossible for the pair to conspire about anything, let alone corruptly helping Williams. On the bottom line, McDonnell did not do more to help Williams than he would have done for any other Virginia-based company, the defense argued.

Not so, replied the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Aber. McDonnell had a responsibility “not to sell the power and influence of his office to the highest bidder,” Aber said.

Both sides agree there was frequent contact between Williams and Maureen McDonnell. The pair exchanged 1,200 phone calls and texts over two years — more than one a day.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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Fallen Virginia Governor Indicted For Corruption

Fallen Virginia Governor Indicted For Corruption

Washington (AFP) – Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, once talked of as a Republican vice presidential pick, was indicted for corruption, charged with procuring loans and luxury gifts in exchange for favors.

McDonnell, who led the state from 2010 until January 11, and wife Maureen were charged with 14 felony counts, including wire fraud and receiving property based on their official duties.

Authorities said the couple repeatedly turned to businessman Jonnie Williams Sr. seeking loans, clothes, trips and private plane rides.

Then, federal prosecutors said, the pair conspired to try and help Williams’ business, a former cigarette maker that now sells dietary supplements.

McDonnell apologized for what he called his own “bad judgment,” and said he took full responsibility but insisted he had done nothing against Virginia law by accepting gifts.

“I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest, and I have apologized for my poor judgment,” the former governor told The Washington Post.

“However, I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship.”

McDonnell also promised to “use every available resource and advocate” to “fight these false allegations, and to prevail against this unjust overreach of the federal government.”

The McDonnells in 2010 sought according to prosecutors, the help of Williams, then head of Nasdaq-traded Star Scientific.

The couple conspired, authorities charge, “to secretly use (his) official position as Governor of Virginia to enrich the defendants and their family members by soliciting and accepting payments, loans, gifts, and other things of value from JW and Star Scientific in exchange for (McDonnell and his office) performing official actions on an as-needed basis, as opportunities arose, to legitimize, promote, and obtain research studies for Star Scientific’s products.”

Before the couple’s daughter wed, Williams shelled out $11,000 at Oscar de la Renta and $5,685 at Louis Vuitton, for Mrs McDonnell’s shoes and a handbag.

Her husband received a Rolex engraved with the words “71st governor of Virginia.” In total, the couple received at least $140,000 in luxury gifts.

The scandal enveloped McDonnell, who previously had a squeaky-clean reputation. The 59-year-old was on the shortlist to become running-mate for Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

AFP Photo/Alex Wong