New York Times health care cheerleader-reporter David Herszenhorn seems unhappy that Republicans continue to oppose Obama-care -- especially John McCain, who Obama beat in the 2008 election. Herszenhorn really “cranked” up the melodrama (and old man insults?) in his Monday morning post on the Times's “Prescriptions” blog, “The Crankiness of the Defeated," turning a hum-drum event -- the 73-year-old Sen. John McCain challenging Obama on health care -- into a strange anti-Republican hit piece.

As political opera goes, the libretto seemed to be the vengeance of the vanquished.With President Obama at the Capitol on Sunday for a meeting with the Democratic caucus, his nemesis from last year’s presidential race, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, stood in a corridor just a few steps away facing a gaggle of reporters and television cameras.....It was less aria than huff-and-puff. He and Mr. McConnell suggested that the fact that Mr. Obama was meeting alone with Democrats was evidence that hyper-partisanship continues in Washington and that the president had been powerless to stop it.(Of course, Mr. McConnell, Mr. McCain and their Republican colleagues do their own part to contribute to the continuing acrimony, but that went unspoken.)

As if he really expected Republicans to issue a mea culpa at a partisan press conference.

Obama victory on health care reform is just around the corner! Once again.Monday's collaboration in the New York Times by health reporter Robert Pear and White House correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg was headlined "Obama Strategy on Health Care Legislation Appears to Be Paying Off."

After months of plodding work by five Congressional committees and weeks of back-room bargaining by Democratic leaders, President Obama's arms-length strategy on health care appears to be paying dividends, with the House and the Senate poised to take up legislation to insure nearly all Americans.Debate in the House is expected to begin this week, and the Senate will soon take up its version. Democratic leaders and senior White House officials are sounding increasingly confident that Mr. Obama will sign legislation overhauling the nation's health care system -- a goal that has eluded American presidents for decades.

Pear and Stolberg aren't the first Times reporters to declare an Obama victory on the health "reform" front. David Herszenhorn did the same back on September 10, calling Obama's joint address to Congress on health reform "a clear turning point in the health care debate." Not quite.

The New York Times's health care priorities were on display in Wednesday's paper. While a parody ad by liberal comedian Will Ferrell and left-wing MoveOn.org was considered newsworthy, suppression of free speech by the Obama administration was left out. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky went on the Senate floor Tuesday and called out the Obama administration for using a federal agency to squelch mailings by insurance company Humana. The mailings to beneficiaries warned them of possible cuts to the Medicare Advantage program under Obama-care. A post on the New York Times's health care blog "Prescriptions" Tuesday afternoon by David Herszenhorn, "Senate Republican Leader Accuses Democrats of Muzzling Critics," quoted McConnell extensively on this suppression of free speech. Still Herszenhorn couldn't help getting in a political dig:

In a sign of escalating tension on Capitol Hill, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, accused Democrats and the Obama administration on Tuesday of trying to muzzle critics of their proposed health care legislation.

President Obama’s decision to reverse himself and oppose the release of photographs depicting "detainee abuse" by the U.S. military might be wildly controversial on the left, but the Times story by Jeff Zeleny and Thom Shanker on Thursday’s front page was very slow to feature opposing voices.