The Career Politician Who Sucks at Politics

Senator and Countrywide V.I.P. Chris Dodd...LOL

I’ve really only heard Christopher Dodd‘s name peripherally over the years.  The Career Democratic Senator from Connecticut’s name has been popping up more and more now that his constituents are starting to learn about how much he loves rogue financial corporations.

From the New York Times:
Across Connecticut, anger is erupting against Mr. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, whose stature in Washington once reflected the state’s beneficial ties with the financial industry. Now, he finds himself a symbol of the political establishment’s coziness with tainted corporations and a target of populist wrath over their excesses.

Dodd’s faux-pas’ are legion.

Among them, he was assigned to V.I.P. Status, whatever the f@#$ that means, at Countrywide Financial…yeah, that Countrywide.  Very nice, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee gets props from the most deceitful and reckless lender in the United States during the real estate frenzy.

Here’s another, he’s taken $300,000 in political contributions from A.I.G. and it’s employees.  On the surface, not surprising, considering their large presence in CT.  That’s not the problem, though, this is:

On Thursday, the senator sought to defuse the furor over the latest revelation…to explain how legislation meant to limit executive compensation was changed at the last minute. That change exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like those at American International Group, a big campaign contributor to Mr. Dodd that received billions in federal bailout money.

Gets better, not only did Dodd slip in a loophole, he then denied it, then he blamed it on the Treasury, and then finally admitted that his staff wrote up the loophole:

Initially, Mr. Dodd said he did not know how the loophole got into the legislation that sought to crack down on executive compensation. But then in an interview Wednesday with CNN, he acknowledged that his staff helped write the revisions after receiving a request from the Treasury Department.

28 years in the Senate and Chris Dodd is completely clueless.  And he chairs the Finance Committee!

Here’s my personal fave Chris Dodd move, though.  He literally picked his family up and moved them to Iowa, when he thought he had a shot at running for US President:

A short-lived presidential run, during which he moved his family to Iowa, did not help either, leaving some in Connecticut feeling that he abandoned the state for a quixotic adventure.

His CT constituents must’ve loved that. Then, when everyone was all like, “Chris Who?,” he came crawling back.

To sum up, he’s down with Countrywide while ostensibly overseeing the lending business in Congress, he’s thick-as-thieves with The Notorious A.I.G., he lied about the bonus loophole that he personally created and to top it off, he’s willing to leave his home state and move to a cornfield at the drop of a hat.

He must have read Machiavelli for Dummies rather than The Prince, this guy sucks at politics and should be removed from the finance committee yesterday.

Full Story:  Dodd Draws Voters’ Ire (NYT)