“We have a system that only catches morons,” sighed a member of the State Legislature’s brave but not terribly large band of reformers.

Yeah, why didn’t these guys do things the normal way? A donation to the campaign war chest and a promise to “keep in close contact,” followed by a visit from a lobbyist with a copy of the proposed legislation?

“Most lawmakers in Congress do a lot of that stuff. They’re just more tactful in how they go about it,” said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. She recalled the recent discovery that Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey had been using his influence to try to resolve a multimillion-dollar Medicare billing dispute for a Florida ophthalmologist whose company contributed more than $700,000 toward the election of Senate Democrats, Menendez included. The senator, who is nothing if not a skilled practitioner of business as usual, is shocked, wounded and dismayed that anyone would imagine a quid pro quo.

“At least he’s expensive,” Sloan said.

Our New York gang comes pretty cheap. Although perhaps it’s heartening to realize that America is still a country so filled with promise that even the chairman of the Bronx Republican Party can dream of one day being indicted for taking a $15,000 bribe. There are hardly any Republicans in the Bronx to chair — the party leader himself, who got the job when his predecessor went to the clink, actually lives someplace in the suburbs.

One of the stranger elements to the New York story was word that a Bronx assemblyman named Nelson Castro has been wearing a wire for the feds for virtually his entire political career. He originally got into trouble when election officials noticed nine voters were registered as living with him in his one-bedroom apartment. Unable to demonstrate how all that worked out, Castro agreed to cooperate with authorities and became the F.B.I.’s own social networking system. Nobody knows yet what else showed up on the Castro tapes, but the assemblyman announced his resignation this week, expressing pride “of my accomplishments and the many benefits that I have secured on behalf of my district over the last four years.”

So, here’s a hopeful thought: maybe you can hit a point of ethical bankruptcy where, for want of anybody else to sell out, all the plotters betray each other.