Let’s take a wager – which institution which be gone before January 2011 – The House of Dodd or the Hartford Courant?  With each passing week, the smart money seems to be on the Courant.

There are some good reporters and editors left at the nation’s oldest daily, but the paper has not become a confusing collection of promotions for FOX 61 and stories that are not even closely in tune with daily affairs of Connecticut. And given the precarious state of the Tribune company, how long before Mr. Zell is told by the banks to start liquidating some assets?

But until that day, the Courant still holds true to its core liberal convictions and it has decided to be part of the great rehabilitation  of project of our time – the cleansing and rebirth of Christopher J. Dodd.

Take today’s  Opinion Page cover which blares “How’s Dodd Doing?” in which they get canned comments from 12 figures from the in-the-the- know community. Of these, eight can be generously described as liberal acolytes who would excuse a fellow traveler of any indiscretion so long as that fellow support national health insurance, gay marriage, a international monetary currency and a posthumous Presidential pardon of Alger Hiss.

And leading the parade of well wishers for the Senior Senator is none other the man who destroy modern day Connecticut  than Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr. In his usual way, Weicker first talks about himself and how he reluctantly defeated the late Tom Dodd when he won in 1970 in a three-way race with Democrat Joe Duffy.

“I wasn’t proud of the particulary  tough verbiage I had landed on Dodd,” Weicker reminisced.  Oh, the 1970’s. That was when Weicker was a conservative loyalist of  Richard Nixon and supported the war in Vietnam.

But once Chris Dodd joined him in Senate in 1980, Weicker was thinking about running for President himself.  When Republican Roger Eddy of Newington stepped up to run against Dodd in 1986 at the urging of Weicker’s GOP Chairman Tom D’Amore,  the Bear in the Cave routinely ridiculed and back-stabbedEddy during his campaign. Weicker was always eager to help a friend.

Weicker can’t help himself. He actually thinks people still listen to his yodeling. You get the feeling his has already taped the eulogy to be played so that no one will mess it up at his state funeral.

His legacy in Connecticut is much like what Dodd is trying to do now with national health care, create an unsustainable government through punishing taxation. We have not, nor we may never, recover from the Weicker Income Tax in 1991. Let us hope Dodd fails soon with health care or the price will be higher than anyone can imagine.

There are others who pay homage to Dodd in this collection, suitable for framing, Bill Curry, David Fink and  his old friend Sen. Joe Liberman.

The only contributor who says anything remotely pertinent is the non-politician -  Chris “Ghengis Conn” Biegelow, who operates the best political blog in the state – www.ctlocalpolitics.com.

“Sen. Dodd is making progress in the Senate, but legislation and projects along cannot repair his broken relationship with Connecticut voters,” Biegelow writes.

It’s a ll nonsense of course. The wheels are coming off the push to nationalize health care and Dodd has looked frayed and edgy chairing the committee once run by his mentor, the ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA.

However, despite battling brain cancer, ole Ted was up to doing a TV ad for his first mate and that is supposed to hit our airwaves Monday.