Dodd gives journos the idiot's treatment on mortgage document disclosure
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
02/03/09 7:27 AM EST
There are two kinds of journalists in the world - those who have been been given the idiot's treatment by public officials on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for public documents, and those who will be.
Believe me, I know because I didn't get inducted into the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame for nothing (no, really, I am not making that up. Go here if you think only liberals get such honors.).
Now Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen, Chris Dodd, D-CN, has pulled what has to be an all-time classic evasion stunt against journalists covering Congress and the economic crisis concerning his promise six months ago to make public all of the documents about his sweetheart loan deal with Countrywide Mortgage.
Dodd invited a select few Connecticut reporters to his office in Hartford Monday and gave them a few minutes to view - but not copy - a small selection of documents that he claims proves he did nothing wrong in accepting special treatment from Countrywide that saved him a reported $75,000 in refinancing a couple of loans worth a total of $800,000. The Wall Street Journal called it Dodd's "Peek-A-Boo Disclosure."
He got the favorable treatment from Countrywide under the lender's "Friends of Angelo" program, which Portfolio.com exposed last year as the influence-peddling tool of Angelo Moziolo, Countrywide's founder. Lots of Washington and California poliiticians got special loan treatment in return for ... well, the Democratic-controlled Congress hasn't exactly been eager to answer that question.
Anyway, note that Dodd staged this Potemkin disclosure back home, not here in Washington, D.C., and that apparently no Washington-based journalists were invited to go to Hartford for the unveiling.
This is an example of one of the three most basic evasions politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government use to avoid disclosing embarrassing documents requested by journalists.
These three include:
* Sure, we'll give you those documents but first we have to charge you $30 quadzilion for us to copy them.
* Yes, we will give you those documents but first we will have to charge you $30 quadzillion to reprogram our computers.
* Of course you can see those documents, but you can't take them with you or make copies of them.
Here's why the politicians and bureaucrats who use these three evasions are giving their journalist tormentors the idiot's treatment: First, they figure the journalist is too bashful to challenge the copying cost.
Second, they figure the journalist won't demand documentation of the fairy tale "reprogramming cost." Third, they figure the journalist will meekly accept and won't instead file a FOIA lawsuit demanding copies of all of the documents now.
The tragedy is that too often the evasive politician or bureaucrat knows his journalist requestor better than the journalist knows the laws protecting the public's right to know. In their defense, the journalist frequently knows that in the final analysis he or she has no real options because his publisher won't or can't afford the cost of litigation, and so throws in the towel at the first sign of opposition or resistance to an FOIA request.
So the question now is what will be the response from Mainstream Media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and CBS News, plus the big professional journalism organizations like the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).
Will they simply go away like nothing important just happened, go through the motions of meaningless protest or actually do something concrete like jointly tell Dodd to stop playing games or risk the consequences of a lawsuit, including a discovery process relentlessly pursued and with every detail made public?
My guess is that they will do nothing because Dodd is a Democrat and he will be protected just as they have protected House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Clinton administration officials like former OMB Director Franklin Raines, and the many Democrat donors and operators like Mozilo who made millions through their associations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They forced lenders to lend billions to unqualified buyers, shielded the process from public exposure and accountability and then cried "Wall Street greed" when their Ponzi scheme exploded and the economy tanked.
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