Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Politicians - Senators Dodd and Conrad
Caught!...
A National Review editorial has this:
"Senators Dodd and Conrad have protested that they did not know that they were being given preferential treatment. We therefore are implicitly asked to believe that the gentle souls at Countrywide were forgoing profits on loans to influential politicians out of a sense of public-spiritedness, and were carefully concealing the sweetheart deals from their beneficiaries. One might hope that the two men who would go on to chair the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Budget Committee would recognize unusual financial arrangements when they saw them — and signed their names to them. But whether either of these two possesses the financial acumen to assess the sweetness of a mortgage, their banker, Robert Feinberg of Countrywide’s VIP operation, now informs congressional investigators that both men knew they were getting preferential treatment.
'Who you know is basically how you’re coming in here,' Feinberg said. 'You don’t say ‘no’ to the VIP.' Pressed directly about whether Senator Conrad was aware of the arrangement, Feinberg said, 'Yes, he was aware.' Dodd, too? 'Yes, yes.' "
