The acorn that fell too far from the tree

Scott notes below that Christopher Dodd, who has announced he will not seek re-election to the Senate, followed in the footsteps of his father, Tom Dodd, in several respects. Most notably, the senior Dodd was censured by the Senate for corruption. The junior Dodd deserved censure and might eventually have received it from the Senate, assuming he did not receive a form of it from the good people of Connecticut.
But there is one huge difference between the two Dodds. Tom Dodd was a strong anti-Communist. He even remained one during the Vietnam war. Recall (via Don Pesci) these lyrics from Phil Ochs’ “Draft Dodger Rag” — “‘I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town/I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keepin’ old Castro down.”
Tom Dodd’s anti-Communism may have had its origins in anti-totalitarianism, a staple of liberalism during the 1950s. Dodd had been Robert Jackson’s number-two man on the team of Americans who prosecuted Nazi war criminals. He received both the Medal of Freedom and the Certificate of Merit for his work.
In 1949, the Polish government wanted to award Dodd its badge of honor. However, Dodd rejected it because he believed the Polish government was imposing a tyranny similar to that imposed by the Nazis, and that accepting an honor from it would be like accepting one from the Nazis.
Chris Dodd, unfortunately, was anything but anti-totalitarian. He has advocated accommodation with Castro’s Cuba (so much for “keeping old Castro down”) and with Chavez’s Venezuela. And he was a leader in the fight against supporting anti-Communist elements in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Chris Dodd will not be officially censured like Tom Dodd was. But neither will he win the Medal of Freedom.
SCOTT adds: The younger Dodd’s affinity for Communists goes way back. A reader notes this 1975 statement from then Rep. Dodd, cited by James Webb, when the Cambodian holocaust was imminent and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge was the alternative to Lon Nol: “[C]alling the Lon Nol regime an ally is to debase the word….The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now.”
PAUL adds; When you add it all up — the support for Communist dictators, the contribution to the recent financial crisis, and the personal corruption — has there been a worse U.S. Senator in modern times? I’ve been following the Senate for 50 years and can’t think of one.