Conniving Chris

MANIFESTO

It kind of beggars belief how stupid Connecticut's senior senator has become right before our eyes.

On Tuesday, Dodd said that he was not a member of the conference committee that crafted the final compromise bill and said that the exception had not been in the bill as he drafted it.

But late Wednesday, Dodd admitted in an interview with CNN that he had been involved [in key legislative changes that helped pave the way for AIG to pay controversial bonuses to its employees].

This story rates a banner headline in this morning's Courant. Needless to say, the paper points out that the state's most celebrated philanderer is "already reeling in public opinion polls." This certainly doesn't help, at least in my eyes. And, as dim a bulb as I think Rob Simmons is, at least he's not the overt liar that the five-term senator is.

Meanwhile, on a more local level, the state's Senate President, Donald E. Williams Jr.,

on Wednesday proposed a special 80 percent state tax on the bonuses received by AIG insurance executives working here ... Williams said the bill is appropriate because those employees helped wreck the nation's and Connecticut's economies.

Now, I'm hardly a fan of AIG's greed, but I'd hope that Connecticut's legislators would have at least a passing acquaintance with the contents of the document the state refers to in its nickname.