by Paul Bass | May 4, 2009 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)

Making parallels to the Nuremberg trials, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd told a gathering of liberal bloggers in New Haven he’d support bringing charges against any Bush administration officials found responsible for the policy of waterboarding terrorism suspects.

The five-term Connecticut senator made the comments Sunday at The Playwright, his latest New Haven stop in what has become a nonstop Dodd Career Resuscitation Tour in the wake of recent damaging press disclosures.

“Not to prosecute people and pursue them when these acts occurred,” he said following the gathering, “is in a sense to invite them to do it again in a future administration.”

The event was as notable for what Dodd said — the torture remarks; a vow not “to get burned again” on executive bonuses — as for where he said it. A week after the last D.C.-based reporter from a Connecticut newspaper was laid off, Dodd turned to local bloggers to help communicate with constituents back home.

It’s “Torture”

Toward the end of the hour-long afternoon session in a second-floor room at the Temple Street pub, veteran blogger Al Robinson of My Left Nutmeg asked Dodd a two-part question: Is waterboarding, the near-drowning technique used by the CIA interrogators on al Qaeda suspects, a form of torture? And does the senator believe that Bush administration officials who OK’d the technique should be held accountable?

The issue has exploded to prominence in Washington (in between news of a Senate defection, a flu possible pandemic, and a Supreme Court retirement) since the Obama administration released memos last month showing the CIA waterboarded two suspects 266 times, long after receiving any useful information.

“I believe waterboarding is torture,” Dodd responded. Not only was it torture — it didn’t work, he said. He noted that one suspect was waterboarded 183 times. “How effective could that be after the 90th?”

Dodd supported a call by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont to have a select committee investigate the case. Now that President Obama has released the memos, they should be put to use rather than ignored, he argued.

“If people in fact did something that was illegal they should be pursued,” Dodd said, no matter how high up in the Bush administration the trail leads. He spoke of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II in making the case that people responsible for the torture should be prosecuted; Dodd’s father was a prosecutor at the trials.

Click on the play arrow at the top of this story to watch his response.

Leahy arguing for select committee to review.

Playwright, The Sequel

When the session ended, Dodd spoke of why he had his staff organize it. He noted that last week the Connecticut Post laid off D.C. correspondent Peter Urban. “We have no one [left at the Capitol] — zero — covering a seven-member delegation” for readers back home, he said. Even when he’s back in Connecticut he sees fewer reporters at events than in the past. Meanwhile, the “universe” of bloggers is growing, getting more diverse, and playing a role in communicating with voters.

Dodd and five staffers sat around a table prepared, and little utilized, for drinks and food with the five bloggers who attended. Pictured from left are Tessa Marquis of Milford Democrats, among other sites; “CT Bob”; Edward Anderson; and Al Robinson. One blogger (Bob) ordered a draft; Dodd had a Splenda-sweetened coffee; a staffer ordered a soda; and Anderson brought in a Starbucks cup. (Also there was Gabe Rosenberg of CT Local Politics.)That was it. A waiter brought in two baskets of bread which remained covered atop the room’s bar counter.

The beer was flowing more prodigiously, and the atmosphere was more electric, when many of those same bloggers assembled to participate in a different Senate campaign. They came to pay homage to proto-liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the Daily Kos website and to Ned Lamont, the insurgent Democrat whom the bloggers were at the time helping to raise money and visibility. (Click here to read that story; Lamont went on to defeat Lieberman in a Democratic primary, then lose the general election when Lieberman ran as an independent.)

It was clear from Sunday afternoon’s more subdued gathering that the group of bloggers is inclined to support rather than trash the latest incumbent senator from the state in danger of losing his seat. The questions were for the most part supportive of Dodd’s stands, especially his bill to limit credit-card companies’ predatory practices. Dodd’s bill passed the Banking Committee last week; he predicted a tough fight before the full Senate. And he enlisted the bloggers in getting the word out. (Read about the bill here.)

Unlike at a mainstream press conference, there were no “gotcha” questions, and few sound bites. Dodd and the bloggers dissected the credit-card bill, the bank bailout, and other issues in depth, at a leisurely pace.

In the Irish-themed pub, there were no questions about the latest scandal that threatens to sink Dodd’s career next year, a profitable land deal in Ireland tied to a businessman on whose behalf the senator won a presidential pardon. (Read about that here.)

There were no questions about the story in that day’s Courant about the $500,000 a year Dodd’s wife is pulling in serving on corporate boards.

Nor were there questions about Dodd’s receipt of two mortgages on favorable terms from the head of a subprime lender he was supposed to regulate as chair of the Senate Banking Committee.

But there were lots of real questions, not softballs. Like when Robinson asked Dodd if he has learned anything from the episode that first made his favorability ratings tank: an amendment he pushed that enabled AIG execs to collect bonuses out of government bailout money. Public outrage was so intense that the normally untouchable Dodd, whose term expires in 2010, is now running behind Republican Rob Simmons in the polls.

Dodd was ready to respond to Robinson’s question, with no hint of defensiveness.

The answer: He “won’t get burned again.”

He said he plans to play an independent role in analyzing the regulations that the Treasury Department draws up based on the amendment that passed last fall.

He repeated the theme that he had agreed to the provision that allowed the bonuses as part of a larger amendment in which he inserted strong pro-taxpayer protections; that the Treasury Department pushed for it at a time when senators were urged to act fast to prevent an imminent economic collapse; and that no other senators objected, either.

In short, he argued, he was left out to dry by the Obama administration. But he also said that moving forward he would act differently.

“You [Treasury] tell me what you want to do, and I’ll tell you whether I think it’s right or not,” Dodd said. He vowed he wouldn’t “nod and say that sounds good to me. I’ve been down that road again. I won’t do that again.”

Dodd said he’s “not hostile” to performance-based bonuses that reward execs for coming in and turning around a troubled bank. He said he does flatly reject retention bonuses with taxpayer money: “It’s a phony argument that nobody else will do these things. A lot of people who have been laid off in this business will be happy to take the job.”