Reid's slip betrays truth behind pork barrel spending

As you know from previous posts, the Senate this week is ground zero in the battle between reformers and pork-hoarding Senate old bulls. Legislation to stop the earmarking practice in the Senate for a year has garnered the support of all three major Presidential candidates as well as that of an unusual list of Senators.

Usually reform measures like this are rapidly swept under the rug by the old guard, but much to their dismay this one looks like it won't be so easy because of the media attention brought by the Presidential candidates.

Still, the an unholy alliance of Republican and Democrat old bulls are pulling out all the stops. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are smugly predicting another victory for the pro-pork alliance. During a press conference yesterday however, Reid had a quite unfortunate slip of the tongue:

"I hope that senators of good will on both sides of the aisle will step forward and say, 'We have an obligation to our clients — to our constituents,'" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pleaded to his colleagues.

Uh oh...cats out of the bag Harry. It is all about the clients. In Harry's case, the "clients" are the lobbyists who ask for earmark money for certain projects on behalf of their own clients. If Harry can't deliver for his clients then the lobbyists can't deliver for theirs'. And if nobody delivers, how does Harry get his campaign coffers enriched and how do the lobbyists attract more clients and how does the status-quo broken Congress continue?

UPDATE: Much more here from Heritage's The Foundry