Bob McDonnell Must Go

Bob McDonnell's response to revelations that he and his family accepted $120,000 in cash from a major donor, the latest in a string of such reports, was "astonishing" writes Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post: McDonnell calmly asserted that he hadn't broken the letter of the law. Marcus doesn't care. "Whether he technically complied with Virginia's Swiss cheese disclosure laws or not," she writes, "he has no business continuing in office," and indeed, his very failure to grasp the wrongness of what he'd done makes it worse.

The entire affair has quickly derailed the career of a guy who was recently on Mitt Romney's VP shortlist. "It's a colossal fall from grace," one Virginia Republican tells Politico. As for McDonnell's 2016 presidential hopes, "that conversation doesn't even exist" anymore, one Republican tells CBS. "The conversation now is if there is going to be a resignation." What's more, the scandal could ensnare McDonnell's would-be successor, Ken Cuccinelli, who is also close to the Star Scientific exec who's been so generous with McDonnell, the National Journal reports. (More Bob McDonnell stories.)