We know how so very receptive Republicans are to the lubrications of other people's cash. It is routine and it is repulsive. Myself, I can't recall a time when the party in power, especially in the houses of Congress, was so avaricious and so portentously honorable. Some people think that one cure to this would be higher pay for senators and representatives. Maybe, but only on the margins. A certain kind of corruption has become a way of life in our politics, and Republicans have simply made this way of life more routine and more costly. I can't possibly link to any particular source. It's in each and every newspaper you pick up. Of course, not all of this corruption is actually illegal. It's, as Mike Kinsley once wrote in these pages, what's legal that's often the most scandalous. Campaign contributions are the means of exchange. And--wouldn't you know it?--big corporations are now giving compensatory big time to the Democrats. Saturday's New York Times had an intriguing story by Jeff Zeleny and Aron Pilhofer about this late move by business interests. Nancy Pelosi will apparently be a tremendous beneficiary of this largesse, scheduled to be the outstretched hand at a $15,000 per ski getaway. She will give that money away to candidates in tight races before the election. And, if they win and the Democratic candidates capture the House, they'll be indebted to her and will certainly vote her to be speaker. So, here's a way, that corporate titans will help assure that the left-wing of the Democratic Party in the House will also be indebted to them. Some of it, of course, is petty stuff. In Saturday's Boston Globe, there's an article about how the Democratic speaker of the Massachusetts House bought two used BMWs at a $20,000 discount from Sports Limited Auto Sales. This may be just a gesture of thanks to the speaker for doing such a wonderful job doing good works for the poor ... or only God knows what. On, the other, hand it's probably not for doing legislative good works for anyone.