The only thing standing in the way of powerful Senators and Congresspersons from cashing in are niggling laws designed to prevent it and a lack of creativity.

Chris Dodd knows a lot of creative people and he seems to have a thing for real estate. The news reporting on this hasn't been particularly clear, so let me outline it.

1993: Dodd's good buddy Ed Downe Jr. gets convicted for insider trading but stays out of jail. He claims bankruptcy to avoid paying an eleven million dollar fine.

1994: Dodd and a partner from Kansas city introduced to him by Downe, buy a "cottage" on an Irish island for $160,000.00 with a 2 year seller mortgage. Dodd pays 12 grand down for a 1/3 interest. Downe witnesses the mortgage documents and gives Dodd a $2,000.00 campaign contribution in spite of his claims of poverty to the SEC.

1996: Dodd and Kessinger refinance the seller mortgage with another mortgage (from Countrywide?) and Dodd reports rental income.

2001: Dodd prevails on outgoing President Clinton to pardon Downes.

2002: Dodd buys out his partner's 2/3rd interest for 122,000.00, not much more than what the would was worth eight years earlier. Prices for existing homes in Ireland generally quadrupled during that period. Prices in Dodd's neck of the woods almost certainly increased more than that.

The nearby village of Roundstone is a celebrity hangout. When he's there, the Sunday Times reported in 2007, he's likely to "rub shoulders with [RTE's] Pat Kenny, Bill Whelan of Riverdance, Lochlann Quinn, the former AIB chairman, and the singer Brian Kennedy".

Given the Irish property boom, a conservative estimate would be that the house would be worth approaching $1 million, and very possibly much more than that.

Present: Dodd's most recent financial disclosures state a value between $100-250,000.00 for the cottage.

Pretty good deal turning 12 grand into a cool million.

The Democrat's pay-for-play culture is a stiletto through the vital organs of democracy, but unfortunately democracy has to live with foreign objects embedded in vital organs until we make a better kind of human being. Or until morally compromised individuals like Chris Dodd are removed from office.

There is a delicious irony in the fact that the Democrats incessant provocation of class warfare is blowing up in their faces. Cindy McCain didn't have to buy her houses by getting pardons for criminals and quid pro quo deals in which the American people were the saps.

UPDATE: Is Dodd being creative again?

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., sent bank stocks into a tailspin Friday with an unguarded comment. The White House had to issue its own comment later to restore equilibrium to stock markets. Some speculators could have made or lost millions.

What Dodd said, to Bloomberg News, was that while he did not like the idea of nationalizing banks, he could see where it might become necessary for a short time. And investors, thinking, “What does he know that we haven’t heard yet?” sold their bank stocks.

He didn’t know anything. He was just shooting off his mouth. But major bank stocks lost a quarter to a third of their entire value in a matter of minutes. The White House was obliged to issue its own statement that the administration feels private ownership is the way to go.

Translation: “Don’t pay attention to Chris Dodd. He is a babooze.”

The Washington Post noted that someone who bought Bank of America on Friday morning and sold during the Dodd panic could have lost 28% of his investment, while someone who bought at the bottom and sold after the White House restored order could have made a 30% profit.

It be interesting to know who made a thirty percent windfall. Do they know Chris Dodds?