Chris Dodd's crooked father, Willy Stern, etc.
The Dodd-Father The Scrapbook enjoys a good cry as much as anyone, and we suspect there wasn't a dry eye in the New York Times newsroom last week when they published "Dodd's Other Campaign:...
...So this was in fact, a military success story— for NATO and Afghan forces...
...The only problem with the story, of course, is that Times readers are somehow left with the impression that the noble Roman Thomas Dodd's Other Ca Restoring Dads Dodd was censured by his Senate colleagues (92-5) four decades ago not for "diverting $116,000 in campaign funds for his personal use" but because he was so gosh-darned decent and law-abiding, especially when prosecuting Nazis...
...Afterwards, someone went into the backroom and came out with a case of kosher red wine...
...His legal adviser, Col...
...And second, tender letters to his wife notwithstanding, the late Tom Dodd was a crook...
...Was the long-awaited "spring offensive" by the Taliban finally underway, six months later than predicted...
...More Iraq Vignettes We published a few observations on Iraq last week from Willy Stern, an old Scrapbook friend, who had just returned from a stint in Iraq embedded with the First Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas...
...It's the first time I've ever heard a rabbi say a single nice word about President Bush...
...There was a front-page snapshot of toddler Christopher Dodd (now senator from Connecticut and Democratic candidate for president) sitting in the lap of his father, who is reading him a story in front of a fireplace...
...from Princeton...
...Here's how the story continued: "KABUL, Afghanistan—Heavy battles punctuated by airstrikes killed 75 suspected Taliban and at least six civilians in Afghanistan's south...
...Mark Martins also was along on the run...
...He has a Duke MBA...
...They seem to have scored lopsided victories in battles against Taliban militants allied with Osama bin Laden...
...Not exactly...
...I showed up at 1830 last night for Shabbat services in a mini-chapel over at Camp Victory...
...But how about "NATO Airstrikes Kill 75 Taliban...
...First, only someone like Christopher Dodd, a reliable apologist for left-wing tyrants in Latin America since arriving in the Senate, would see the lawful detention of the world's most dangerous terrorists in a compound open to public inspection as "civil liberties . . . under assault...
...But there was a line in there where we all prayed for the president of the U.S...
...How the elder Dodd's censure by the Senate in 1967 devastated young Christopher, then a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, whose "[presidential] campaign is the most public chapter in his career-long quest for his father's redemption...
...Petraeus has a Ph.D...
...They take the ban seriously...
...We scanned the news wires and saw this Associated Press headline: "81 Killed in Afghan Fighting, Airstrikes...
...Hundreds Killed in Pearl Harbor Fighting Our morning got off to a dismal start...
...Dodd has been personally overwhelmed by what he learned of his father through the letters and by his passion to redefine his legacy...
...The "diverting [of] $116,000 in campaign funds for his personal use" was the standard sort of tip-of-the-iceberg charge meant to symbolize his long and squalid career of shaking down people for cash, in exchange for political influence, and pocketing the proceeds...
...This would seem to be a bit more informative...
...To which The Scrapbook feels constrained to add two dry-eyed comments...
...It realizes the AP is not about to allow any pro-American rooting to creep into its headlines...
...military bases here forbid porn and alcohol...
...Army in Iraq, David H. Petraeus, and some of his senior staff...
...Inside there's an artsy photo of today's Senator Dodd standing among some trees on the Capitol grounds (you can see the dome in the background...
...Friends say that Mr...
...Our final prayer was in celebration of the United States of America...
...The nine of us in Rabbi Sachs's Baghdad "congregation" that night sat in desk chairs that we had arranged in a semi-circle around our preacher...
...Dodd," writes Elisabeth Bumiller, ". . . insisted that [Letters from Nuremberg] was not meant as a vindication, but as a reminder about the commitment to due process at the admired Nuremberg trials when civil liberties are under assault at Guanta-namo—a formulation that earns him big applause on the campaign trail...
...The Scrapbook is not unreasonable...
...The Dodd-Father The Scrapbook enjoys a good cry as much as anyone, and we suspect there wasn't a dry eye in the New York Times newsroom last week when they published "Dodd's Other Campaign: Restoring Dad's Reputation" by Elisabeth Bumiller...
...More to the point, these are also impressive human beings of superior intellect who share an unfaltering commitment to serve their country...
...Mr...
...I couldn't take notes (the rabbi was orthodox and they have some sort of prohibition about using writing instruments on the Sabbath...
...His father, of course, was the late Senator Thomas J. Dodd...
...What was John Kerry thinking...
...Those naughty, rule-breaking Jews: In an effort to be sensitive to the local Muslims—only some of whom are trying to kill us—all U.S...
...I went for a run the other day with the commanding general of the U.S...
...Martins is a Rhodes Scholar with a Harvard Law degree...
...Not so the Jews...
...It's not 1944 anymore, so we're not expecting to see "Hajji Hightails It to Helmand Hills: Yanks in Hot Pursuit...
...Here are a couple more: What's a Rhodes Scholar like you doing in a place like this...
...They are all very fast...
...I guess Jewish customs trump Muslim ones...
...That it would ruin the breakfasts of those rooting for the Taliban is lagniappe...
...Too bad the headline didn't convey that...
...The Army had flown in a baby-faced reservist rabbi—the ever-smiling Rabbi Mark Sachs—from Pittsburgh...
...Petraeus's aide-de-camp ran too...
...Those in attendance included a top executive with Kellogg, Brown & Root (the contractor that performs many non-military services here), three enlisted guys, and one female (a commander in the U.S...
...Sure sounded bad...
...M-16s and M-4s lined the back wall...
...The story is full of touching details...
...Navy...
...How, for example, the senator's sister stumbled on a sheaf of letters the elder Dodd, then a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, had written to his wife, now collected in a new book (Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice) edited by Christopher Dodd...
...If Christopher Dodd wants to learn more about his father, may we recommend Above the Law: The Rise and Fall of Senator Thomas J. Dodd by James Boyd (New American Library, 1968), an account of criminality written by the old senator's onetime administrative assistant which, 39 years later, still makes chilling reading...
...How, according to Senator Dodd's brother Thomas Jr., Christopher "said to me once, 'Every time I walk on the Senate floor, I feel that he's vindicated.'" At which point, The Scrapbook is not ashamed to say, we reached for our handkerchief...
Vol. 13 • October 2007 • No. 4
