A JURY of his peers concluded that former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) was ethically obtuse. The chief justice of the United States found much the same thing. Now we are treated to the spectacle of Mr. McDonnell himself, on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” declaring that his conduct in office — his acceptance of gifts, loans and vacations from a favor-seeking businessman — was simply politics as usual.

Mr. McDonnell is not contrite.

Perhaps it is expecting too much from the degraded state of contemporary American politics and civic life to think Mr. McDonnell would publicly subject his past behavior to a clear-eyed, unflinching ethical review. After all, the president of the United States gained access to the Oval Office by adhering to a strict policy of not apologizing.

Mr. McDonnell takes cover from the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling vacating his conviction at trial, which found that his particular brand of sticky-fingered greed did not meet the law’s crabbed definition of official corruption. Having broken no law, the former governor says, the fact of his having abused his office for personal gain has left his conscience unsullied. “I knew in my heart I was governing myself properly,” Mr. McDonnell said.

In fact, while the court spared Mr. McDonnell the ignominy of serving his two-year prison sentence, its opinion was a far cry from absolution. “There is no doubt that this case is distasteful,” wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who took note of the “tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns” — a sampling of the many gratuities bestowed upon Mr. McDonnell and his wife. “It may be worse than that.”

To Mr. McDonnell, the baubles and bling he happily accepted were all within the normal bounds of transactional Virginia politics, the crucible that made Mr. McDonnell’s career first as lawmaker, later as a governor. “We may not like the amount of gifts,” he told “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, “but it was consistent with Virginia law and so, Bill, that’s why at this point I feel vindicated.”

If in fact Mr. McDonnell feels “vindicated,” he has badly missed the point of his ordeal. His conduct in office, as Mr. Roberts stated plainly, did not “typify normal political interaction. . . . Far from it.”

No, Mr. McDonnell, not every politician is on the take; not every politician skates right up to the line of federal corruption statutes by pocketing every freebie they can; and not every politician has the chutzpah to blithely claim ignorance as a defense against suggestions of bribery. (“I didn’t know what a Rolex cost, to be honest,” Mr. McDonnell said. “I’m a Seiko and Timex guy, and always have been.”)

In finding that Mr. McDonnell’s actions fell short of the definition of actual graft, the Supreme Court narrowed the leeway granted prosecutors to hold elected officials to account for corruption. That is hardly vindication for Mr. McDonnell’s ethical myopia, nor any sort of legacy to inspire pride.