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The things that everybody ignores when going on about how Sen. Reid and Sen. Dorgan, in particular, got donations from "Jack Abramoff's clients" is that these senators' political interests coincide with the tribes' interests. Sen. Dorgan has supported the tribes' interests for years and would do so even if nobody'd ever heard of Jack Abramoff. After all, he represents a state with a large Indian population. And Sen. Reid represents Nevada -- you know, Las Vegas, Reno, existing gambling establishments; of course he's going to vote the way the tribes would want him to, because they and he both have reason to limit new gambling establishments.
The question should be not whether politicians received contributions from "Jack Abramoff's clients", but why they did. In the case of the Democratic recipients, the answer definitely is not "because the contributors were Abramoff's clients".
