The Republican convention was delayed by a day on Monday. It’s not a problem: The national media’s preconvention spin was timed perfectly, almost as if it was on automatic pilot. In Monday’s New York Times, longtime political writer Adam Nagourney regurgitated the same old, tired political spin that the Republican Party is too conservative and exclusionary on “social issues” and that their divisive stands will hurt them with “mainstream” voters.

1976. 1980. 1984. 1988. 1992. 1996. 2000. 2004. 2008. Will they ever stop saying this?

The absurdity of this is stunning, considering that on these same “social issues,” there is almost no way President Obama can be further out on the other “extreme.” Republicans are pro-life; Obama favors abortion for any reason, even after the baby is “accidentally” born during a botched abortion. Republicans are for marriage; Obama now openly lobbies for homosexual marriage as the far-left Democratic base is wandering toward “love is love” rhetoric that will naturally and eventually embrace polyamorous “marriages” of three or four or however many anyone wants.

But on these issues, The New York Times also stands on that extreme, bizarrely thinking that it is both on the cutting edge of “justice” and somehow in the mainstream. These and other journalists arrogantly believe they have the right and the authority to redefine and pervert our cultural norms, achieving an extreme revolution of sexual libertinism, all the while asserting they are the “mainstream.”

Some version of Nagourney’s 2012 article has been written or mouthed before every single Republican convention since 1976: “Some leaders expressed worry that the turn to contentious social issues in the days leading up to the Republican National Convention, where the party platform is likely to embrace a tough anti-abortion stance and strict curbs on immigration, could undercut the party’s need to broaden its appeal. Many of them said they feared it was hastening a march to becoming a smaller, older, whiter and more male party.”

This was also the Times’ spin going into the 2010 midterms. The tea party was going to shrink the GOP and make it older, whiter and more male. Facts never get in the way of a good liberal-media story line.

Sadly, Nagourney even found conservatives that seemed to support the ancient Times’ spin.

“The Republican Party needs to re-establish its philosophy of the big tent with principles,” said ... Dan Quayle. “The philosophy you hear from time to time, which is unfortunate, is one of exclusion rather than inclusion. You have to be expanding the base, expanding the party, because compared to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is a minority party.”

Quayle also slammed the tea party later in the article. “For some folks in the party these days, it’s not only the Washington establishment they’re running against. They’re opposed to anything that is perceived as being any kind of establishment, even if they are conservative. To me, that is craziness. The party has got some real challenges coming down the pike. It’s a minority party, and we’ve got to realize that it’s a game of addition, not subtraction.” CNN picked right up on the conservative “craziness” line.

Why is Dan Quayle sounding all the old Rockefeller Republican notes? Perhaps he’s upset that his old colleague Dick Lugar was pushed out by the tea party. Maybe because it’s the only way the Times will ever quote him.

Try putting the words “Democratic Party” within 25 words of “factions” in a Nexis search. The results will stun you. Over the last two years, the Times has exclusively used these terms only in stories on foreign countries. One editorial briefly referred to “factions” among Democrats ... referring to the election of 1860.