You know, if the average military person or civilian with a security clearance did something like this they would be fired/discharged and lose their clearance. Also prior to being discharged in the case of the military person there would be a court martial

The key failure of Reid and other Democrats was that they didn't properly frame the stimulus package. The republicans were able to frame the package as full of pork and the Democrats didn't do enough to counteract the Republicans message. They were so ineffective that many posters even on DU thought the bill was full of pork. To be fair part of the problem was the media, because there were a few strong Democratic voices out there, but not enough to counteract the framing of the Republicans and the media.