Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The Hartford Courant, assaulted by the paper's columnist and ex-radio talk show host Colin McEnroe as being insufficiently empathetic to Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, invited Friends of Dodd (FOD) to weigh in on the senator’s sterling virtues. The shade of former Gov. John Rowland, towards whom all the commentators celebrating Dodd’s spotless career in the U.S. Senate were insufficiently empathetic, hovered over the whole enterprise like Banquo’s ghost. McEnroe wrote that the Courant had “engaged in an unattractive feeding frenzy,” displaying “a tabloid-style headline that was so garishly loaded as to constitute a real lapse in journalistic standards.” The “political establishment, with one or two exceptions, has shown itself to be utterly without spine.” They have repaid the kindnesses shown them “by treating him like a pin pulled hand-grenade. They stand 80 yards from the blast site feebly waving.” A lament for Connecticut's beleaguered ex-governor perhaps? Nope. It’s...