Kept slaves happy then and us blind now
You can get to the true juicy taste of the "pork" in the American political sense if you know the origin of the term. And there seems no doubt it derives from a benevolent practice common in the South in the years before the civil war.
Slave owners on special occasions, or whenever they were feeling particularly charitable (some did it regularly in the binding spirit of noblesse oblige - a code the best owners lived by), would put out salt pork in big barrels at a certain time on an announced day.
The above is a cut and paste from an article I used as research for this to give the real meaning of pork barrel spending done by both sides of the political spectrum.
This practice was used to keep the slaves happy and in line, much like the modern days version of pork spending is used to pacify and keep in line today's modern slaves, the middle of America.
The best and most extreme example of today is Republican Don Young {Alaska} with his one billion dollar bridge to no where.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=news&start=0&num=3&q=http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051021/21congresswatch.htm&e=50097
Both parties are totally out of control with spending, trying to blame all this on the Bush administration is a ploy used by the left to hide all the pork they spend on.
Citizens against government waste has a list of all the wasteful spending done by "our leaders"
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_pork
It's about time we start holding our leaders to a higher standard and voting them out of office when they spend frivolously.