Washington (FA wire) - Washington was purged of all corruption today, as former Bush administration official David Safavian was convicted of being the man responsible for all the dirty dealings. According to White House sources, Safavian was clearly the kingpin of a shady network connected to influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

“It’s a real relief,” said one administration official. “For a while it looked like we wouldn’t catch the guy responsible for tarnishing our government’s reputation. But we did. Thank God it’s over.”

guilty!
[Safavian, shortly after the rest of the
government was cleared of any wrongdoing.]

Associates and former superiors expressed shock and feelings of betrayal in response to the jury’s findings that they had all indeed been hoodwinked by the demonically charming, cunning, and supernaturally powerful Safavian.

“He cast a spell on all of us,” said one sitting White House Chief of Staff, on condition of winking anonymity. “We didn’t even realize until recently that we were all unwittingly doing his evil bidding. He was the one, no doubt about it.”

Though critics insist that the scandal goes deeper than that and the investigation is ongoing, administration officials insist that this does not matter. “As long as things like that are relegated to the fifth or sixth paragraph of the news reports, most Americans will never read about it,” said one official. “Most people will see a guy they’ve never heard of being found guilty of a crime they don’t really understand, and they’ll take our word for it when we say that we’ve cleaned house.”

“In fact,” he went on, “you press guys are so diligent about quoting us without too much analysis that I can take advantage of the fact that statistics show that most Americans will, after reading the lead paragraph, skim their way down to the final ten words to ’see how it ends,’ and will therefore walk away with the impression that the rest of the Bush administration has been totally cleared.”