Banking Law

The news late last week that Senators Dodd and Conrad skated on charges that they violated US Senate ethics rules arising out of their being "Friends of Angelo's" hardly took the country by surprise. A  typical comment in The Wall Street Journal article on the matter summed up the rampant cynicism that permeates much of the public.

It's seriously like bizarro world. Honestly, let me get this straight, and with a straight face.

The committee found no "wrong-doing" but thought the loan program called "VIP" SHOULD have clued him in that maybe he was being considered a VIP? Seriously. They think we are complete idiots.

Dude, I swear, don't TOUCH my health care.

A responder to said comment noted dryly: "The way we keep sending the same crooks back, they KNOW we're idiots."

Meanwhile, back at the zoo, the problems of the ethically challenged keep mounting. The same day it was announced that Dodd and Conrad wriggled off the Countrywide hook, CBS News announced that the Mazillo group hug groped more than merely Messrs. Dodd and Conrad. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Adolphus Towns (D-NY) also is under the microscope. I doubt that he's sweating bullets, given the lenient treatment accorded his Senate counterparts, but at least even "fair and balanced" news readers like the terminally cutesy Katie Couric are starting to rake the muck and throw it on more and more of our elected representatives of both parties. As yet another commenter in the journal so aptly put it, "This is a confirmation that Republicans don't have a monopoly on stupid..."

Now, why doesn't that realization make us all feel better?

Dodd's not out of the woods, though. The folks at Hot Air (another "fair and balanced" news source, although balanced way to the right of Ms. Couric's balance point) remind us that Dodd's got more than one ethical Gordian knot to untie. That ought to keep him busy until the next election, when the voters of Connecticut will, once again, be asked to answer the accusation that they are, indeed, idiots.