Why are these guys in charge of deciding on the bailout

There is some cognitive dissonance in seeing Chris Dodd chair the hearing on the bailout in the Senate Banking Committee yesterday. As Victor Davis Hanson writes,

Very odd to see a Sen. Chris Dodd, of all people, today defiant and outspoken in his regard for the people:

if only he had returned (never too late) lavish contributions from Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae (as Senate banking chairman, he was their #1 targeted recipient and raked in over $160,000);

if only in the midst of a loan crisis, he had not received below-market-rate VIP loans from the now late great, melted-down Countrywide for whose parochial interests he championed;

if only he had not been instrumental in blocking past proposed firewalls that might have prevented the collapse of the two agencies that were the catalyst for this mess;

if only he had a bit of contrition for his own role in this national mess.

Surely in the interest of transparency and conflict of interest, any Senator, Republican or Democrat, who accepted money from Freddie and Frannie, or any of the imperiled investment houses, should recuse themselves from the present hearings—but then there might not be a quorum.

These are the same Democrats on the Banking Committee who three years ago blocked reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac thus allowing the problems to metastasize for three more years. Remember, just a couple of months ago, Dodd was denying that there was any problem with Fannie and Freddie.

As recently as July of this year, Senator Dodd declared Fannie Mae and Freddie “fundamentally strong” and said there is no need for “panicking” about them.

Is that the guy whom you trust to be crafting the biggest bailout in history? Already Dodd is pushing that the bailout should extend to people who took out mortgages that they now have found that they can't afford. It's one thing to shore up the credit market to make sure that our economy stays fluid. It's another thing to say that everyone who gambled that rising home prices would protect them from taking out a loan that they otherwise had no hope of paying back.

And I wish these guys would keep their mouths shut about what they think of the plan. All these politicians are out there making statements about how much they dislike Paulson's plan. This is one of the times when we'd benefit from politicians keeping their mouths shut and instead working to come up with a workable solution. Don't they have any concept of how each one of these statements roil the markets even more? But politicians of both parties would rather rush to a microphone instead of buckling down and addressing the problems.