Dodd Still the Zen Master Of Political Obfuscation by Christopher Healy

Dodd Still the Zen Master Of Political Obfuscation

By Christopher Healy

July 29, 2005

It was vintage Christopher J. Dodd July 25 at a breakfast meeting of the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce. The senior senator, liberal icon and political brand name of Connecticut politics was the featured speaker before 600 glassy-eyed business leaders. Dodd has become a walking caricature of himself, the chortling Hail Fellow Well Met, the bloviating orator yearning for an appreciative audience, the last defender of the United Nations who thinks people really give a hoot about John Bolton.

The Middlesex Chamber always provides a polite crowd full of local and statewide Democrats who dutifully attend, pretend they have a clue about what a Connecticut companies have to endure on a daily basis, and revel in their wholesale domination of the state.

Dodd was late, as always, and had to wait by the door while Barbara Weiss, a Republican member of the Middletown Board of Education, was given the William A. O'Nelll Leadership Award for community service. After Weiss said a few words, grabbed her prize and sat down, Dodd bounded up and re-re-presented her the award. Dodd had no idea who this woman was, but he knows Bill O'Neill and went on about how O'Neill was the best governor in state history. It was all seamless and effortless. If Barbara Weiss was Adolph Eichman, Dodd could have pulled it off without a bat of the eye.

Then Dodd did his standup act which showed why, as one attendee said, "You agree with him even when you don't agree with him."

On the war in Iraq, Dodd opined that the decision to go to war and remove one of history's more adept artists of genocide would never have passed Congress, "knowing what we know now." Dodd didn't tell us what we know now - that the roots of democracy have been planted in a corner of the world that only has known totalitarianism, murder and graft. Then the Peace Corp. veteran and Sandinista war bond investor wrapped himself in the fatigues of the military, saying, "we should stay the course;" not to set a deadline for withdrawal, but to "set benchmarks;" about leaving the country, but "not to pack up and leave."

Then, without missing a beat, Dodd boldly shifted to the third-rail of politics - Social Security. While he doesn't support private savings accounts, Dodd decried the lack of savings and called for an expansion of 401-Ks. He said the fund does have solvency problems, but we have until 2042 to figure it out. I don't know about you, Chris, but I don't have until 2042 to figure it out. Thanks to the Democrats "pay no attention to that bankrupt program behind the curtain," I am already buying gourmet cat food - in bulk.

Dodd also showed how to disembody himself from his entire career as a pillar of the liberal establishment. Dodd said he was "uneasy" about the national debt and called for fiscal discipline - this from someone who has had little trouble endorsing every conceivable expansion of the federal government's reach into our lives and pocketbooks.

Dodd said too many foreign nations have too many of our bonds and we had better do something about, because he was "uneasy" about it. Didn't bother to offer a solution, but he is uneasy, you understand.

He blamed the lack of more highway and infrastructure money coming to Connecticut on two dead U.S. Senators - Pat Moynihan of New York and John Chaffee of Rhode Island - for not being around to take care of their neighboring state during those messy appropriations battles. No mention of his choice to represent Connecticut's interests by being a member of the Rules, Foreign Relations Committee and the Banks Committee.

And then, he offered a classic analysis of the fate of the Groton Naval Base, a fight that he has been copiously absent from since we got the good news several months ago. A few days before, Dodd was dour about whether the BRAC Commission would take Groton off the hit list and talked about new opportunities in the New London area.

At the breakfast, Dodd was a little more chipper - "50-50, maybe a little less than that." Oh, and he was "uneasy" about what the loss of Groton base would be to the country as well as those people, somewhere down by the water.

He received a standing ovation.