Mark Leibovich and Anne Kornblut's "Reporters Notebook" entryfor Thursday, "Where Up Is Still Down, But the Rest Is Changing [1]," is presented as a straight news story in the paper's hard copy, buta gleeful,pro-Democratictone is clearly audible.
Check the unflattering imagery over this unflattering sub-head, which quotes Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry:
"It's Not Whining"
"Waving his hands and stomping his feet, Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina acted out on Wednesday what the rest of the Republican caucus must have felt. 'It is so hypocritical, just on its face,' Mr. McHenry fumed.
"His complaint: That Democrats, on the verge of taking control of Congress, were planning to run the place their way, driving the legislative agenda themselves without input from the Republican minority.
"Wasn't that, someone asked, how the Republicans had run Congress for more than a decade?
"'We didn't campaign on this openness,' Mr. McHenry argued, denying that he and his colleagues were just being sore losers. 'It's not whining,' he said. 'It's a matter of calling them out on their rhetoric.'
"Democrats had not even taken over yet. But Republicans, suddenly facing a minimum two-year sentence out of power, coalesced around a message of kvetching."
Actually, Washington Post columnist-reporter Dana Milbanks [2]reveals today thatit was in fact Kornblut herself who asked McHenry whether or not he was "whining."
Milbank:
"Anne Kornblut of the New York Times asked McHenry if his complaint might come across as whining.
"'I'm not whining,' he whined."
As noted above, the Times even used that quote as a subhead, all the better to portray Republicans as petulant hypocrites.