There may be chaos in South Ossetia, a looming, uber-dramatic US presidential election on the horizon, and a female Vice-Presidential candidate with a love for guns and Yup’ik Indians, but the only politics I want to talk about are from 2006.

Today Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years in a federal prison. Little Jack was convicted in 2006 on charges of fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials, tax-evasion and all-around naughtiness in connection with a defrauding scheme to dupe casino-rich Indian tribes and encourage former congressional staffers to violate a one-year lobbying ban. In addition to his jail time, the former Capitol Hill power-lobbyist was also ordered to pay $23 million in restitution to his former tribal clients. Is there a payment plan involved with this, I wonder? It better not involve wire transfers, because Jack cannot be trusted with those. In fairness to Abramoff, his public apology and address to the judge did seem genuinely contrite. But then again, what other choice did he have? One doesn’t expect him to appear in court wearing a ten-gallon hat and laughing like Yosemite Sam with $1000 Choctaw poker chips spilling from his pockets. That would be really awesome, but I’d hardly expect it.

There is one thing to thank Abramoff for; (other than some really good Daily Show episodes) his tentacled scandal led to a massive investigation on lobbying practices in a then GOP-governed House and Senate.

[Dolores Jackson, a member of the Saginaw Chippewa, and apparently the only Indian that Abramoff didn’t rip off. Or maybe she’s on his payroll.  p.s. I want that t-shirt]

McClatchy Newspapers states that “when Abramoff pleaded guilty in 2006, as many as half a dozen lawmakers, including former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (love him!) of Texas and Rep. John Doolittle of California, were said to be under scrutiny for their dealings with his former lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig. Prosecutors have convicted 10 people, including five former congressional staffers, former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles, former Justice Department lawyer Robert Coughlin and former Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.”

This shakedown, a direct result of Abramoff’s seedy lobbying practices, resulted in the complete turnover of Congress in the 2006 election year. Granted, the Democrats now in office haven’t done much of anything and some of them have probably been hitting on underage House pages, but at lease they get to fill those fancy seats instead of some easily-swayed-by-free-golf-trips Republican, right? (I should probably visit factcheck.org before stating any of the latter.)

Anyway, in the fall of 2006, NAICA did an overzealous (and probably misinformed) exposé on the adventures of Little Jack and his friends on Capitol Hill. It is very long, grammatically incorrect at times, and much too campy. But it does have ridiculously Photoshopped pictures, which is something the Washington Post has really been dropping the ball on recently. Check it out!