WaPo's First Word on Sen. Craig? 'GOP'; NYT Curiously Shy

Advice to members of Congress: take the train. Our illustrious senators and congressmen seem to have a penchant for getting into trouble when they venture into airports. We're all familiar with how things went wrong for Rep. Patrick Kennedy in 2000 when he tried to barge his way past an airport screening employee. When just eight days ago Rep. Bob Filner (D-Ca.) was charged with assault and battery for his run-in with an airline employee at Dulles International outside DC, I noted here that CNN managed to get through its report on the matter without mentioning Filner's Democratic-party affiliation.

So naturally I was curious to see how some of the major papers dealt with the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and his guilty plea to charges of disorderly conduct in a men's room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport earlier this month.

Whereas CNN was shy about mentioning Filner's Dem roots, the Washington Post had no such hesitation when it came to indicating Craig's Republican-party membership. Indeed, the very first word of its headline announced it:

GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest

In contrast, the New York Times was curiously diffident. It's headline blandly stated only:

Senator, Arrested at Airport, Pleads Guilty

If "TMI" [Too Much Information] is a phrase in vogue, you might call the Times headline TLI. Along with omitting his party, the headline didn't mention his name or give any clue as to the crime to which he pleaded. For all the Times told us it could have been anything from littering to aggravated assault.

What explains the Times's bashfulness? Could it have been the triumph of political correctness on matters gay over the paper's partisan impulse?

UPDATE: Whereas the Times omitted Craig's party affiliation in its headline, the paper did mention that he is a Republican in the article's first few words. In contrast, in a separate article in today's paper regarding the ethical foibles of another senator, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the Times waited four paragraphs and 274 words to reveal that he is a Democrat. H/t reader VDR.