In Sunday’s Hartford Courant, reporters John Lender and Ed Mahoney, go to into  substantial detail on how people of humble means can go to Washington, D.C. and get rich. Now, it seems , we know how Sen. Chris Dodd and his wife, the former Jackie Clegg, were able to swing those three homes they own in Haddam, Washington and Inishneer, Ireland.

After quietly becoming Mrs. Dodd in 1999, the Courant reports that Jackie Clegg Dodd, a former staffer with the Import Export Bank, has managed to collect close to $500,000 in annual income from being a corporate board member of several pharmaceutical companies and others, like Blockbuster. In some cases, Mrs. Dodd sits as a member of several internal auditing committee of these boards, which are suppose to require a more advanced grasp of financial operations.

Mrs. Dodd sniffed at this line of inquiry and said it wouldn’t apply to a male spouse of a female lawmaker. And she told the Courant, her married name actually has hurt his business opportunity since many companies often don’t want the controversy. Why, we owe the Dodd’s an apology. Imagine, not being able to cash in on your government service – as if quadrupling your best year’s salary ($125,000 as reported) isn’t enough to make end’s meet.

“In Washington, offering employment to the spouses and family members of politicians is a time-honored, if not so honorable, tradition,” said Sheila Krumholz of the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group last year asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate whether the Dodds received favorable treatment when Countrywide Financial refinanced mortgages on two of their homes.

“It’s another way for politicians to gain income and for donors, potential donors, people and industries with business before government to curry favor with powerful members who have jurisdiction over their issues,” Krumholz said.

Two years ago,  former Democratic House Speaker James Amann, and now candidate for Governor, shook down state lobbyists and contractors for a charity that paid him to raise money for their operation. Amann claimed it was no big deal, but eventually the state Ethics Commission put a stop to it.

In Washington, the political class has taken this to an art form. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s wife, Linda, lobbied for a major firm- Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz  in DC and, of course, vowed never to talk to her husband about any of her business dealings.  Debbie Dingell, wife of the longest serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Dingell, quit official lobbying for GM when she married the Michigan Congressman and former chairman of the Commerce Committee, but remained a high-level executive.

But what is truly damming about the Courant story is Mrs. Dodd’s qualifications or lack thereof, to be a member of the auditing committees to these boards. The 2002 financial reform legislation which Sen. Dodd championed, Sarbanes-Oxley, supposedly put an end to corporations loading up their governing boards with members that couldn’t read balance sheets or aggressively challenge the numbers posted in earning’s statements.  The law requires people with financial bona fides- accounting, financial management – anything to give shareholder’s confidence that the operations of that company are on the up and up. In the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the companies which have seated Mrs. Dodd, have outlined her business acumen through her own consulting firm. But by her own admission, Mrs. Dodd hasn’t had any clients for three years and there is no phone number if one wanted to call and hire her.  Mrs. Dodd explained she wanted to be a full-time mother and board member.

Either way, it would see, if you have no business background, you have no business being on a corporate auditing committee.

But again, those rules apply to the rest of us dummies our here in America, who are losing our jobs, our retirement savings, our health care while watching the government take care of itself. After 30 years of crying poverty, Chris Dodd has been building quite a financial empire – without risk or worry that anyone will mind.

That is a dangerous assumption – especially in a Bear Market.