No surprise, really…

…that the slimy tentacles of Jack Abramoff's lobbying shop extended well beyond the Bugman and his buddies...

AP: In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

Actually, it's probably not that notable for a major DC lobbying firm to have that many contacts with a new, and presumably friendly, administration. Not normally. Abramoff, though, has demonstrated an extraordinary, if not singular, disregard for legality, let alone ethics. In that light, more information about the nature and outcome of some of those contacts might be very interesting...