Just as with the promise to allow the public to review legislation for five days before the hypocrite-in-chief signs it, there’s no real effort to fulfill Barack Obama’s “no earmark” pledge. After the House passed a $410 billion spending bill with thousands of earmarks, the administration said the no earmark rule will be begin to apply on matters concerning the next fiscal year.

Why not start now? Well, because the bill has earmarks left by none other than Obama, Joe Biden, the chief of staff and four cabinet members. No wonder the rule doesn’t apply yet — our change in leadership wants their pet projects to stay.

Of course, there’s an effort to remove their names from the earmarks (damned that rule that made earmark sponsors public).

Here’s the details:

The $7.7 million earmark — for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions — is cosponsored by a long list of other members of both chambers. The program appeared in Senate report language last year but its sponsors were not identified at that time.

Overall, the president, vice president, the White House chief of staff and the four Cabinet secretaries who were in Congress last year showed up in the records of the House and Senate Appropriations committees as the sponsors or cosponsors of hundreds of millions of dollars in pet projects in the $410 billion spending bill.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. , who was a senator from Delaware when the window for making 2009 pet project requests was open, has his name attached to $94.9 million in earmarks.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , who was a senator at the time, sponsored or cosponsored even more in special line items for favored projects. His total, including earmarks he supported as a secondary sponsor, was $227.4 million. The overwhelming majority of those earmarks were cosponsored in conjunction with other lawmakers.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton , Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood , Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also were members of the last Congress, and each of their names is associated with at least one earmark in this appropriation, which is ready for debate in the Senate.

Now, the GOP doesn’t get a free ride — 40 percent of the earmark projects are from Republican members.

But, if Obama had any intellectual honesty, he’d tell the Senate to begin “the era of responsibility” now and strip the bill of the earmarks, whether his name is attached or not. But it seems Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the real ones in charge.

And kudos to those who caught the “earache my eye” reference.