CNN's Dobbs Highlights Wall Street's Political Contributions

[credit where due]
As one who's been critical of CNN's Lou Dobbs a time or two, I was glad to see him and correspondents Louise Schiavone and Kitty Pilgrim perform a valuable public service on Friday's edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight.

They detailed political contributions made by finance, insurance and real estate firms to four members of Congress taking lead roles in crafting the Wall Street bailout:

DOBBS: Just four members of Congress will lead the negotiations of what President Bush and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to be the largest government bailout in history. Democrats, Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Congressman Frank, Chairman, House Financial Services Committee. Republicans Senator Judd Gregg and Congressman Roy Blunt, House Minority Whip.

That's your lineup, folks and over the past two decades, those four men have accepted almost $20 million in donations from finance, insurance and real estate firms. Yes, the very same firms that stand to benefit from that almost trillion dollar federal bailout. [snip]

DOBBS: Well he and -- I mean that's sort of shocking. He and Blunt are pikers (ph). I mean Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank have been making them look silly. I mean you're talking tremendous sums of money on the Democratic side. I'm a little embarrassed for the Republicans. They're supposed to be the party of business and they're not getting their fair share of the business.

Dobbs is right. The Republicans received chump change compared to the bucks pulled down by their Democratic counterparts. Then again, it seems to me that the Democrats bear considerably more culpability for the financial quagmire we find ourselves in.

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