THE HARTFORD COURANT ON CHRIS DODD AND THE COUNTRYWIDE SCANDAL:
Sen. Christopher Dodd sounded like Dr. Seuss without the depth last week. “It is what it is,” declared Dodd, mistaking Hartford for Whoville, when he told The Courant’s Rick Green that he had no plans to release documents from his $800,000 in sweetheart mortgages from subprime titan Countrywide Financial.
“There is nothing to the story and I’m just not going to keep on repeating it,” pronounced Dodd, as he morphed into Yertle the Turtle. “‘You hush up your mouth!’ howled the mighty King Yertle. ‘You’ve no right to talk to the world’s highest turtle.'”
Dodd will serve the state green eggs and ham before he’ll honor his pledges to release the documents from deals that will save him tens of thousands of dollars over the terms of the loans. Nonsensical answers, however, won’t smother persistent, serious questions about Dodd’s abuse of his office.
Dodd has answered almost no questions about the details of his 2003 mortgages. The senator cast an unflattering light on himself when he couldn’t settle on a credible response in June to the simple question of whether he knew he was getting special mortgage deals as a “Friend of Angelo.” That’s the privileged category of borrowers that Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo made sure received cut-rate loans with hefty traditional fees waived. . . . In the history of this epic, Dodd has guaranteed himself a permanent spot in the pantheon of the privileged oblivious.
He’s basically gotten a pass from the national media, but the Courant has at least paid attention to this story.