HARTFORD COURANT: Senator Dodd Disappoints:

Countrywide was a central culprit in the subprime mortgage meltdown. Mr. Dodd was a ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee when he closed on his loans with Countrywide in 2003. (He’s currently the committee’s chairman.) Countrywide had a powerful incentive for trying to sway senators from a harsh view of its lending practices. And while Mr. Dodd apparently assumed he wasn’t getting special treatment as a customer of Countrywide, he didn’t ask the right questions, either.

Executives at Countrywide, on the other hand, clearly intended to give the Dodds a good deal. The couple were told they qualified for the company’s “VIP” program. Documents for both loans were scrawled with the letters “FOA,” a reference to Friends of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s chief executive at the time.

Read the whole thing. Dodd hasn’t managed to bury this story.