AMERICAblog's spies on the Hill tell us that at 4:34pm Eastern today (gotta love their precision) Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) "totally blew his top, totally lost control" while getting off the underground train that connects the US Capitol building and the Dirksen Senate Office Builing.
It seems a reporter approached Santorum just as he got off the train and asked Santorum something to the effect of: "Can you tell me about the 'K Street Project.""
Santorum's response?
He started screaming, according to our source. "It's just a meeting!", Santorum reportedly yelled (again, in public, right near the Senate cafeteria where lots of folks are gathered). "What Harry Reid said Wednesday [when he announed the Democrats' ethics reform package] is a total lie!"
In fact, the K Street Project is an infamous little conspiracy that Tom Delay created back in the 1990s, and Santorum is the Senate's liaison to that little conspiracy. Thus the reason Ricky isn't too happy about being asked about it:
HOW THE K STREET PROJECT WORKED: In his dealings with K Street lobbyists, DeLay explicitly stated he would operate by “the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends.” (To gain influence over legislation, trade associations and corporate lobbyists were ordered to do three things: 1) refuse to hire Democrats, 2) hire only deserving Republicans as identified by the congressional leadership, and 3) contribute heavily to Republican coffers.) Despite being admonished by the House Ethics Committee numerous times for his conduct, DeLay’s pay-to-play machine continued to plow full-speed ahead. With federal benefits up for sale, corporations quickly identified the need to need to hire more lobbyists, giving rise to one of the greatest growth industries in America. Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, proudly proclaimed in 2002 that [conservatives] “will have 90-10 [percentage advantage in staffing] on K Street and 90-10 business giving.”Someone isn't eating their Wheaties if a simple reporter's question is making them blow their stack in public.
Find out more about the "just a meeting" from NPR here.
