Chris Dodd :"exonerated" just like a former Heisman trophy winner

Well, Chris Dodd found someone to buy his story that even though he knew he was getting "enhanced customer service" that he did not violate Senate ethics rules on gifts.

The Senate Ethics Committee, chaired by that exemplar of even-handedness Barbara Boxer, declared the Senator had not violated those rules in a ruling Friday.

The Dodd camp argues this is an "exoneration".  Hardly. 

Exoneration occurs when a person who has been convicted of a crime is later proved to have been innocent of that crime

No, what we have here is an "acquittal" . Much as the Bronco owner of Brentwood managed to be tried by a sympathetic jury who applied the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, it appears Dodd's fellow senators were unwilling to pass judgment on Dodd and his buddy Kent Conrad.

The basis for the Committee's conclusion that Dodd did not receive an illegal gift appears to be it concluded the evidence supporting the charge was not credible.  We can presume that the committee determined that Robert Feinberg, the Countrywide whistleblower, was not fully truthful. But unlike a public trial, the reason for their conclusion herein is a mystery.  Certaintly many in the press found Feinberg credible.  One is left to surmise why the Senate ethics committee didn't. 

One way to resolve this would be to release the 18,000 pages of evidence presented in defense of Dodd so voters could reach their own conclusion.The Dodd camp has rejected this transparency out of hand.

Perhaps the real reason Dodd and Conrad skated is it appears the Committee defined "improper gift" as applying only to those gratuities offered exclusively to Senators. The "safety in numbers" defense applied. Since the "Friends of Angelo" program greased cabinet members, bureaucrats, local officials and bankers far and wide, the Committee could say with a somewhat straight face "the same terms were offered to many other borrowers".  Wonderful. If you comp everyone no one gets in trouble.

Many observers have noted that the federal investigation into Countrywide is far from over and the DOJ may be less apt to cut politicians slack than an ethics committee.  The voters may not the Ethics Committee pointedly called out Dodd for poor judgment in creating an appearance of impropriety--noting he ignored "red flags".. Or maybe we can go back to exactly how Dodd bought that Irish cottage.

Then again, perhaps we might solve the mystery of how the Senate Banking Committee was asleep at the switch when the global financial markets collapsed in a heap in 2008. Now that he has the ethics investigation behind him, I'm sure Senator Dodd will work very hard to find the "real killers " of  our economy.