JEEZ, IT’S LIKE THEY’RE ALL CROOKS or something:

The top Senate Democrat investigating Jack Abramoff’s Indian lobbying met several times with the lobbyist’s team and clients, held a fundraiser in Abramoff’s arena skybox and arranged congressional help for one of the tribes, records show.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., acknowledges he got Congress in fall 2003 to press government regulators to decide, after decades of delay, whether the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts deserved federal recognition.

Dorgan met with the tribe’s representatives and collected at least $11,500 in political donations from Abramoff partner Michael D. Smith, who was representing the Mashpee, around the time he helped craft the legislation, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Amusing diagram here. The problem is that corruption is bipartisan. The Republicans seem worse now, but that’s because they’re in power, and power provides more opportunities.

Of course, if the government had less power, there would be less corruption. Or at least, the corruption in question would matter less.