Apparently deciding to stick with his recent populist pandering, Chris Dodd is getting some press for this:

The Senate passed an amendment to an anti-fraud bill yesterday that would create an independent outside commission, complete with subpoena power, to investigate the causes of the crisis on Wall Street. The amendment was written by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), but was cosponsored by, among others, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT).

“Through dozens of hearings at the Banking Committee, we have documented a web of negligence, regulatory failures, and other abuses that caused this crisis in our financial system, and in the broader economy,” Dodd said upon passage of the measure. “It will be the responsibility of this independent commission to build upon these findings, investigating every level of regulatory failure, and sniffing out any illegal or abusive activity within the financial services industry.”

This is akin to O.J. putting together a commission to determine who killed his wife. Everyone knows, including Dodd himself, that a great deal of responsibility for the current economic crisis lies at his feet. He’s been on the Senate Banking Committee for more than a quarter of a century,  he encouraged sub-prime lending while accepting vast amounts of money from the lenders themselves, blocked additional regulation of the banking industry, and as the economy was being driven to the brink during his “leadership” as Chairman of the Committee, he abandoned his responsibilities in favor of a move to Iowa as part of his embarassing Presidential run.

So what is he thinking sponsoring the creation of a commission that can do nothing less than embarass him? I’ve come up with two possibilities:

1. He thinks Connecticut voters are oblivious enough to believe his charade in the short run, and figures that by the time the commission is convened and releases any report outing him, he will be safely elected for his final term as U.S. Senator; or,

2. He is banking (bad pun) on the commission being staffed with individuals as incompetent as your average Obama appointee, who will conduct their investigation and determine that everything is the fault of George W. Bush, and he thinks Connecticut voters are not intelligent enough to see through it.

Are there any other explanations for such an ill-advised bluff?

Cross-posted at The Artful Doddger.