Senator Christopher Dodd

December 24, 2009

Senator Christopher Dodd
30 Lewis Street #110
Hartford, CT 06103

RE: The traditions of the Senate

Senator Dodd,

And a non-denominational carbon free Season’s Greetings to you!

Churchill said that the traditions of the Royal Navy were “rum, sodomy, and the lash”. Who knows what you and Teddy were up to but I digress.

Since you are the only member of Congress ever to lie to my face I have always felt a certain kinship to you. I’ll get to that later.

I read your statement about newer members of the Senate “deeply disturbing” you what with their disregard for tradition or, as you say, a “lack of appreciation for what this chamber means and how we work together”.

If I were to use the word “hubris” you might think me an elitist. I’ll settle for you being enveloped in an aura of “non-malodorous fecal matter”. Some of your bluer collar neighbors by your castle in Ireland would say that you think that your shit doesn’t stink.

It does. In fact, the ordure is redolent to the point of nausea.

Is being a “Friend of Angelo” a tradition of the Senate?

Is having a bogus mortgage transaction a tradition of the Senate?

One of the traditions of the Senate that you have – forgive me – scrupulously upheld, the one taught to you by your father, is, “If it ain’t nailed down, grab it”.

You could be your own Stimulus Package if you were to open your windows and start tossing out $20 bills from the swag you got from Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Sallie Mae, and, since Lard Kennedy was your role model, Ellie Mae.

I’ll say this for you, as far as we can tell, you’ve never killed any of them.

As to your lying to me…

Think back to the summer of 1979. There was fund raiser for you in a luxury Park Avenue apartment. I was with Norman Kelly, a man who had performed some personal service for your mother. Your gratitude to him went from effusive to fulsome.

It turned out we had a lot in common.

Our fathers both were lawyers. We both went to Catholic schools. We both majored in History. We both were in the Peace Corps.

I asked you about Central America in general and Nicaragua and the Sandinistas in particular.

You told me that you would be “tough” on them. Further, you told me that the safety and security of the United States were paramount and that it trumped any other concern. You even expressed some concern over President Carter and his head up his ass views on everything. [30 years later and as one History major to another we can stipulate that he was the worst President of the 20th Century, can’t we?]

Alas, everything you told me was a lie.

You have lived up to that tradition since you have been in the Senate.

30 years of lies, big and small, must be a terrible burden on one’s soul.

May I suggest that you re-read “The Hound of Heaven”?

After the people of Connecticut retire you next November I suggest that a lucrative career awaits you. As the paradigmatic template for the modern American Liberal a telemarketing career as a negative example will enable you to earn the first honest dollars in your life. As far as I can tell your motto since you have been in public life has been “Nothing lost save honor”.

You have lived up to that tradition.





Kevin Smith