Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Let’s say you start off with a chair, then you remove the left forward leg, then you remove the seat, then you remove the backrest – do you any longer have a chair? Some people would answer “No.” The Hartford Courant, under the inspiration of current owner Sam Zell, a real estate poobah who has no intellectual or emotional connection to the people of Connecticut, now has dumped a major political reporter, Mark Pazniokas, the paper’s Washington Bureau chief, Jesse Hamilton, its Religion Reporter, Elizabeth Hamilton, a business reporter, Robin Stansbury, a handful of greenies -- environment reporter David Funkhouser, Steve Grant and Anna Marie Somma -- sportswriter Matt Eagan, itowns editor Loretta Waldman and itowns reporter Nancy Lastrina, two administrative assistants, a couple of feature copy editors and a library staffer and researcher. The Courant previously has shed staff through attrition and early retirement. The latest round of bodies were shot behind the curtain, so to speak, ...

The Associated Press is reporting that a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federally supported mortgage lenders, could cost taxpayers $25 billion. “’This is like two months in Iraq for something that involves, literally, market stability and (calms) global jitters,’ said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd , D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. Dodd said he hoped the legislation would clear Congress by the end of the week.”

The senator from Connecticut is the best friend monopolists ever had. Among all the piffle and patter concerning the housing crisis, it has not been sufficiently noticed that this is a “made in Washington” fiasco. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, both teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, are quasi- governments creatures -- federal monopolies, in fact – that pushed the envelope on awarding housing loans to people who could not support them because they knew taxpayers would pick up the tab when they engaged in risky and possibly criminal lending practices that Dodd's children would scorn, if they were grown-up like their Daddy. This is not a point one expects to be discussed at length by Connecticut senator Chris Dodd during any of his senatorial inquisitions as the banker’s banker-in-chief in Washington. Perhaps The New Yorker could develop a suitable cartoon showing the connections between bought and paid congresspersons and infinitely stupid bankers for its next cover. Fanny and Fredd...