CHRIS DODD’S CONTINUING LACK OF CANDOR:

It was past time months ago for Connecticut U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd to come clean and release documents on two mortgages he received from Countrywide Financial Corp. That it still has not happened is now approaching outrageousness.

Following a meeting in Westport last Monday with Fairfield County labor leaders, Connecticut’s senior senator once again hedged on saying when he would release the documents. Mr. Dodd continues to say the information will be forthcoming but he refuses to say when.

The situation has kept an ethical cloud over the state’s senior senator since the disclosure that he and a colleague appear to have received preferential treatment in 2003 on mortgages from Countrywide Financial, which was later implicated in the subprime mortgage scandals and eventually was taken over by Bank of America. For the mortgages, Mr. Dodd was placed into Countrywide’s “VIP” program, which saved him some $2,700 in upfront costs on the loans and allowed his loan rates to decrease as rates dropped. . . .

Full disclosure is key because Sen. Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and is at ground zero in the nation’s Capitol in trying to put a stop to America’s economic meltdown.

Indeed.