Posted on 08/12/2009 2:32:02 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Boiled down, the Friends of Chris say it's OK for Chris to be a Friend of Angelo. Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd is claiming vindication now that the Senate Ethics Committee has said he didn't violate the Senate ethics code when he accepted sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Financial in 2003. Central to this Dodd scandal is that while he was being greased as a Friend of Angelo, he wielded coercive power over Countrywide as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which he now chairs.
The Ethics Committee, six men and women who belong to the same exclusive go-along-to-get-along club as Sen. Dodd, has been criticized for its preordained ruling. To be sure, it relied heavily on Sen. Dodd's dubious documents and was too quick to buy his implausible explanations.
But all things considered, it actually meted out the harshest punishment possible.
First, few harbored hopes the committee would recommend his censure or expulsion. Even if this jury of his peers had the courage to call him out for accepting a de facto gift from the mother of all subprime lenders, the ethics code, written for senators for senators, contains more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire, which as it happens is a puddle hop from the focal point of another Dodd scandal, his Irish cottage. But under ethics rules, only the most brazen corruption — for example, the diversion of campaign contributions for personal expenses as Sen. Dodd's father, Democratic Sen. Thomas Dodd, did in the 1960s — has the remotest chance of being deemed improper conduct.
But even if the code had forbidden Sen. Dodd from improperly saving a bunch of money on his mortgages, his jurors, though fully aware his "loans were handled through the V.I.P loan unit and designated F.O.A loans," still would not have brought him up on charges for fear it would provoke him to rattle the skeletons in their closets.
So after a 14-month "investigation," the committee laid the velvet hammer down. It admonished Sen. Dodd for his inattentiveness to appearances of impropriety and for not asking the obvious questions "once you became aware that your loans were in fact being handled through a program with the name 'V.I.P.'" (It took the further "do-something" step of promising legislation to require senators to include mortgage information on their annual financial-disclosure reports. You know, the dubious forms on which Sen. Dodd for years understated the value of his million-dollar cottage.)
Rather than vindication, the ruling reinforces the belief held by most people in Connecticut, who hold him to much higher standards than Senate ethics watchdogs: Sen. Dodd is dishonest and untrustworthy, and has broken faith with the people who elected him.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
OJ claimed Vindication too.
What a weasel.
Sounds like la Cosa Nostra has higher ethical standards than the Senate!
So do they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall?
Thanks for the ping Graybeard. Like father like son it is said.
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