Jim Geraghty catches the Washington Post burying the lede today; matter-of-factly reporting that President Obama isn’t being truthful in the straw-man arguments he’s employing against critics of the stimulus package.

The press also seems to have missed another glaring contradiction. The righty blogosphere has gotten itself riled up over Obama’s assertion that there are no earmarks in the stimulus bill, as well as Sen. Chuck Schumer’s statement that the American people “don’t care” that the bill is stuffed with some “porky amendments.” It’s one or the other: Either the pork doesn’t exist at all, or the public is ambivalent over its existence.

Before people start quibbling over the technicalities of what constitutes “earmarks,” recall how Obama framed his critique of Republicans during Monday night’s press conference:

But what I’ve — what I’ve been concerned about is some of the language that’s been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth…
When they start characterizing this as pork, without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.

Senator Schumer?

And let me say this, to all of the chattering class, that so much focuses on those little, tiny — yes, porky — amendments: The American people really don’t care.

The Associated Press appears to be in the “yes, there’s pork” camp. As well they should be.

UPDATE: Here’s a helpful audio mash-up of Obama vs. Schumer on the question of pork: