Doddering Dodd

Senator Chris Dodd is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He's also a "friend of Mozilo" who got a special rate on his home loan. I can't figure out for the life of me why the CEO of a mortgage company would want to provide a cut rate mortgage to the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and apparently neither can Dodd:




And apparently the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee has no need to know current mortgage rates.

Update: Dodd may be more of an idiot than I thought (from the NYT):

WASHINGTON — Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut said Tuesday that he was aware that Countrywide Financial Corporation had assigned him to a V.I.P. program in 2003 when he refinanced mortgages on his homes in Connecticut and Washington but that he and his wife “assumed” that “it was more of a courtesy thing.”

Mr. Dodd insisted that they did not get favorable pricing.

As the Senate prepared to take up legislation intended to rescue homeowners at the brink of foreclosure, Mr. Dodd, a Democrat and chairman of the banking committee, defended himself against suggestions that he had received preferential treatment from Countrywide. At a tense news conference, he flatly denied seeking or receiving any discount from the lender.

But his concession that he never inquired or even wondered whether his special status with Countrywide might be related to his position as a senator prompted a barrage of new questions about the terms of his mortgages and about exactly what he knew and when he knew it.

“Somebody told you you were in a V.I.P. program,” a reporter said, “And you didn’t think you were getting ... ”

Mr. Dodd cut off the reporter and finished the question himself. “A special deal on a loan?” the senator asked. “No.”

Is he really that dumb?