IN THE HARTFORD COURANT: Why We Just Can’t Trust Dodd:

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd went one contrivance too far last week at his carefully choreographed press event to explain his mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial. Dodd has engaged in so many contradictions in trying to manage the gathering storm that he probably did not recognize his stunning blunder.

At his Monday event, Dodd wouldn’t let reporters have copies of the selected documents he let them glimpse. Instead, Dodd released a report from a Chicago firm hired with campaign funds to review his mortgage transactions. The report is carefully constructed to vindicate the Dodds and even make them appear to have fared worse than many other borrowers. It includes references to “detailed evaluation” of internal Countrywide documents that the mortgage giant used in processing the Dodds’ applications for more than $800,000 in loans. The firm hired by Dodd, it’s clear, had documents from Countrywide. . . . Monday’s revelation tells us something we are reluctant to conclude about a leader: We cannot believe Christopher Dodd.

During his 35 years of representing Connecticut in Washington, Dodd created and could draw upon a deep reservoir of goodwill at home. In the past eight months, Dodd has drained it down to a muddy swamp of suspicion. He’s mired in muck and he keeps making it worse.

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