Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that he thought he had a deal with Speaker John A. Boehner on a “clean” continuing resolution after the August recess.

The Nevada Democrat publicly accused Boehner of not keeping his word in the latest public show of tension between the two leaders. Reid’s office previously leaked internal correspondence over the fate of health care benefits for members and their staff.

Of course, such any policy-rider-free stopgap measure would not have stopped Obamacare funding. House conservatives, Reid indicated, forced the speaker to change his plan in order to continue their effort to undermine the 2010 health care law.

“I know that that’s not the path that he preferred. I know that because we met the first week we came back in September, and he told me what he wanted was a clean CR at the $988 [billion] number,” Reid said Thursday. “We didn’t like it, but we negotiated. That was our compromise.

“I didn’t twist his arm. He twisted mine a little bit to get that number,” the Nevada Democrat continued. “That was a compromise. Now, he refused to let his own party vote because he was afraid to stand up to something he originally agreed to.”

The $986 billion in the CR would essentially keep spending flat.

Reid’s disclosure came during his opening statement at a news conference just after noon, rather than being provoked by a reporter, leaving no no doubt that he and his leadership team decided they wanted to fire that shot across the Rotunda.