Ok, Democrats, explain this one away:
I just got off the phone with former GOP congressman Rob Simmons, who has declared his candidacy to challenge Chris Dodd. I asked him about the Washington Times story about AIG Financial Services chief executive Joseph Cassano’s 2006 fundraising push for Dodd, asking employees and their spouses to donate the legal maximum, $2,300, and to let Cassano know when they donated. The effort raised $162,000 in six weeks for the Connecticut senator.
“This is a classic case of the conflict of interest that exists when a powerful chairman of an oversight committee puts himself in a position to shake down the people he oversees — and it is a shakedown,” Simmons said. “It’s inappropriate, and it violates the public trust. I believe public office is a public trust — that’s what I learned in the army, and what I’ve followed throughout my career, when I worked for Senator [John] Chafee of Rhode Island and Senator [Barry] Goldwater. You have to hold yourself to a higher standard.”
This, of course, is nothing new – you can go to Open Secrets and find that all manner of politicians get highly coincidental donations. Nancy Pelosi received 33 donations from employees of Amgen in 2007 – 28 of them on the same day. I don’t know about you, but I don’t get together with my fellow employees and set up a “donate to politicians day”. I donate. I’m sure many other people donate at my employer, but the chances of even two of us donating on the same day are small, but you can bet your bottom dollar that something would be screwy if 85% of the donations from people at my firm came in to a campaign on the same day. Clearly, this was coordinated – the only thing we don’t know, because no one will ever look into it, is whether or not any of these donations were reimbursed by the senior executives of Amgen.
With AIG, it seems even more clear that something was up – though we don’t know whether the illegal act of reimbursing donations was made. But Dodd was clearly benefiting from the fact that he held power over AIG, and AIG was determined to placate Dodd. This is just a small example of the nexus of corruption and power which operates like a cancer on our body politic. And this is precisely the sort of thing we must stop if we’re ever to have any real change – and, liberals, if you don’t get on board with getting rid of the Dodds of the world, then you’re just spinning your wheels…you won’t even get your liberalism, because people like Dodd will sell you out in a heartbeat.
Right now, it is looking like Dodd will be in deep trouble next year – let’s hope that, finally, his corrupt political carcass is carried out of the Senate.
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