When it comes to charging abuse in markets like the mortgage business, American politicians, right up the ladder, should zip their lips. They're not ones to talk.
The lucky winners included folks like Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-ND), plus several former Cabinet secretaries: ex-Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson; ex-Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala (who is to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Thursday) and ex-UN Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.
A diverse - but influential - lot. . . . The pols, for their part, claim they're as pure as the driven snow in all this. Dodd calls any suggestion of impropriety "outrageous he and his wife "did not seek or expect any favorable treatment."
