Kissing babies and taking names

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. -- who, depending on the day of the week may be getting tough with the Bush administration on Iraq or helping commission a new nuclear attack submarine built in his home state -- has scheduled a hearing Thursday on turmoil in the mortgage market. He's invited executives from New Century, Countrywide, WMC Mortgage, First Franklin and HSBC "to explain their lending practices in the subprime mortgage market and how those practices have affected homeowners."

What are the chances of that crowd showing up? Pretty good, actually, since Dodd chairs the Senate banking committee and his complaints that federal regulatory guidance to lenders on "nontraditional" mortgages should also apply to hybrid ARMs are seemingly being addressed.

But the hearing does seem like a little bit of an afterthought, like Dodd's visit last month to the Winchester Repeating Arms plant in New Haven, where he met with workers to "discuss his support for keeping the plant open" after the company announced its closure. But you never know, maybe he'll have more success with this one than the time he tried to stick up for all of us potential voters to lower gas prices.
--Matt Carter, Inman News

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