Today, we formally honor the continued stonewalling efforts of U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd to release his mortgage documents for two sweetheart loans he secured through subprime giant Countrywide Financial.

It is day 98 of Mortgage-gate and although most (save for the Waterbury Republican, Kevin Rennie of the Courant and several radio shows) of the Connecticut media and editorial boards are taking a predictable pass at calling on Sen. Dodd to release these important documents, the Connecticut Republican Party won’t stop.

Here is why. All politics aside, Sen. Dodd has been elected by the people of Connecticut to represent our interests, not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, not Countrywide, or Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns. He has also been appointed by his colleagues to chair a very important Senate Committee – Banking and Urban Affairs. Since the credit markets and banks have begun to fail early in 2007, Sen. Dodd has been absent from his duties, due to his run for President, which ended in January 2008.

But since resuming his day job, Chris Dodd has been behind the eight ball as one bank or financial institution has crumbled, sought a federal bailout or private buyer. Sen. Dodd has been oblivious to what any casual reader of the Wall Street Journal could see – banks and lending agencies were overleveraged, lying about their underlying value and looking to get away from their creditors.

In June, it was disclosed through Conde Nast’s portfolio.com that Sen. Dodd had obtained several mortgages for his two properties he and his wife, Jackie Clegg, own in East Haddam and Washington, D.C. The loans were below market rate and some closing costs and points were waived. From what we do know, those freebies saved Sen. and Mrs. Dodd close to $70,000 in interest costs.

But what is not clear is what other benefits Sen. Dodd may have received, a mystery that could be revealed by simply laying out the documentation for public inspection. But after promising the public in late July that he would do that, Sen. Dodd has not. He is ignoring it and hopes it will go away.

It won’t. The public won’t let it and each day as some people lose their homes, they are finding out that Sen. Dodd gets to keep his two homes on the cheap.

So, with each passing day, we’ll keep track on our website, www.CTGOP.org, in hopes that our combined efforts will force Sen. Dodd to come clean – so we can get on to cleaning up this financial mess and turning our economy around.