Conservative benchmark: Sen. Tom Coburn

I wonder if he will ever go to another dinner party again. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma defied the Washington establishment by introducing legislation to slash pork spending to pay for Katrina rebuilding. Other senators, interested in keeping their precious pets back home happy, were quick to get hopping mad, as Mark Tapscott from the Heritage Foundation explained:

What Coburn got in response was pure bipartisan outrage. Sen. Patty Murray, the very liberal Washington Democrat, warned that any senator supporting the Coburn amendments would find projects in his or her own state getting the evil eye by annoyed colleagues who don't want to rock the log-rolling boat.

And Alaska's Ted Stevens, the Old Bull Republican moderate who has been one of the biggest obstacles in Congress to conservative reform since the Reagan administration, stood on the floor and thundered that he would leave the Senate if the Coburn proposal passed.

The amendments fail by a huge margin. Tapscott is a good read, though. Check it out. I heard elsewhere that Murry was angry at Coburn for condemning a proposed statue park (or something like that) somewhere in Seattle. The only way they have justified the project is by saying that they just need to make the land useful...

Coburn is one of the most principled people in America. He first served in the House of Representatives, but didn't stick around because he believes in term limits for congress members and had promised he would only serve a set number of terms. He kept his promise, took time of and then ran for the Senate and won.

Go get them again Tom!

Crossposted at Meneltarma