I thought I'd throw this out there because I don't think the media will pick up on it in any significant way, but much of what allows them to call the Abramoff scandals a bipartisan affair revolves around Democrats receiving money from Indian tribes Abramoff represented and is basically a non-story.  As this Bloomberg article explains Abramoff didn't need to direct contributions to Democrats because these tribes had already been giving almost all of their political contributions to Democrats for years. 

What is interesting, and what the article shows, is that once Abramoff became a lobbyist for the tribes in question, those tribes significantly cut back on giving to Democrats and suddenly gave most of their political contributions to Republicans.  In fact, Bloomberg notes of the top 10 tribal political donators, only the three tribes represented by Abramoff gave more money to Republicans than Democrats. 

In effect, Abramoff brought Indian tribes with strong casino interests into the Republican "pay to play" legislative system and then traded off his relationship with Tom Delay and others in the Republican Congressional leadership to bilk them for millions of dollars.  End of story. 

Now, some of you will write in asking why a few Democrats decided to give back money received from the three tribes represented by Abramoff and I don't have an answer other than they felt that was a prudent thing to do.  In fact, please send their offices a note if you're truly concerned, but don't deny that most of Abramoff's crimes are wrapped up in his participation in a much larger effort by the Republican party to create an institutional linkage between their legislative/political agenda and the big time lobbying community in Washington DC.  The truth is without Republican control of Capitol Hill and corrupt initiatives like the K Street project Jack Abramoff would be pretty much a nobody to most Americans outside a select group of die-hard conservative Republican operatives already based in DC and that's the story that most journalists seem afraid to touch.