WASHINGTON POST: Furor Over AIG Bonuses May Affect Dodd. “For the first time since he was elected to the Senate in 1980, he could face a serious challenge. And some of Dodd’s longtime supporters are saying they will not vote for him again. . . . Dodd, 64, is chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and Wednesday night, he said his staff removed a provision from the recently enacted economic stimulus bill that would have blocked AIG from paying those bonuses. Dodd said he was acting at the request of Treasury Department officials, who feared the provision would prompt legal challenges. But earlier in the week, Dodd had said he did not know how the provision got removed from the bill.”

But wait, there’s more: “Dodd is also under a Senate ethics investigation involving two mortgages he received from Countrywide Financial for his homes in the District and Connecticut. Dodd in 2003 was enrolled in a Countrywide VIP program that gave him preferential treatment for those loans. Countrywide, once the country’s largest mortgage lender, was sold last year to Bank of America as its subprime mortgage portfolio began to collapse. ” And then there’s the continuing Irish “cottage” problem.