For those of you that are interested, Matt Yglesias has responded to my post about his harping on Republican lawmakers for criticizing Harry Reid’s high-speed rail plans.

Yglesias has seized on one aspect of my criticism, and claims I’m “spinning” the matter in defense of Republican lawmakers. I think I was perfectly blunt in admitting more than one Republican has mischaracterized the stimulus bill’s provisions. I think the total lack of transparency in the way Democrats fashioned the bill makes it harder for Yglesias to justify calling GOP lawmakers “liars” for not knowing exactly what was in the bill, and Yglesias disagrees. That’s a perfectly fine point of disagreement.

However, Yglesias doesn’t address my more pertinent criticism — namely that he employed a great deal of hyperbole suggesting that the L.A. to Las Vegas train wasn’t a part of the stimulus. In reality, there’s a sound factual basis to believe that Reid is angling for a “big chunk” of that $8 billion for his pet project. Given that’s the case, Yglesias’ hyperbole here — “inventing fictional projects,” “Boehner Slams Mythical Vegas HSR” — seems unwarranted. And at one point he even offers his own interpretation of the bill where he suggests that because L.A. to Las Vegas isn’t a “designated high-speed corridor,” somehow funding the project “doesn’t make the cut.” Even Reid’s spokesman says the L.A. to Vegas rail line is eligible for funding under the stimulus bill’s provisons.

No question Republican lawmakers have been — unintentionally or not — mischaracterizing the size and scope of the funding for Reid’s train, which is as yet unknown. But to listen to Yglesias tell it, you’d think the project doesn’t exist at all and Reid isn’t interested in funding it. In the course of rushing to condemn Republicans in the strongest possible terms, he managed to create an even more inaccurate picture of what was going on. And yet he says I’m the one being “preposterous.”