It’s so easy to get away with things. Right in front of everyone. No one seriously does anything about it. We’ve seen it with Obama, Clinton, Clinton, and today, with Chris Dodd.
I don’t know why I keep thinking that people like Dodd are respectable and of high integrity. When Countrywide gave him a great, no a ridiculously incredible deal on his mortgage (his wasn’t a sub-prime, was it?), he had to know right then an there that he was get preferential treatment of an order that was inappropriate for a US Senator. Add to that the fact he received significant political contributions from the company and then he co-sponsors the Dodd-Shelby housing-bailout bill (that essentially bails out the likes of Countrywide).
And now, National Review has a story putting very similar wording to that bill in the writings of an internal memo at Bank Of America. David at Bitsblog says it’s time for the Senate to investigate Dodd, and time from him to resign. I agree.
I suspect, however, that a few weeks will go by and it will be forgotten. It’s hard to get the Senate to police itself for one simple reason: no one wants this level of scrutiny on them, so they won’t put it on someone else. That leaves it up to voters, but if Connecticut voters are getting what they want, they may also be co-opted into leaving sleeping dogs lie. We have the same problem here in Iowa with a certain Senator named Harkin.
Keep your eye on the ball, people. These politicians do not have the integrity we need in Congress. If they’re bad, and you should already know which ones I’m talking about, vote them out.
Too bad Dodd isn’t up for reelection until 2010.
Info at Wikipedia on the topic.
