Conservative members of the media were slamming the Washington Post on Friday for how it covered an abortion bill in Virginia, after two Virginia Democrats seemed to suggest that late-term abortions right up to the point of delivery would be allowed by the bill.

Several Post articles bashed the GOP for its criticism of the proposed bill and ignored what many said was an apparent endorsement of infanticide by a Democratic state legislator and Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam.

“Abortion bill draws GOP outrage against Va. Gov. Northam, Democratic legislators,” read one Post headline. “Va. Gov. Northam faces fierce conservative backlash over late-term abortion bill,” read another, and a third headline was, “Until this week, Del. Kathy Tran was known for nursing her daughter on the house floor. Now Republicans are calling her a baby killer."

[Opinion: Virginia's governor just endorsed late-late-term abortion, and journalists are not on it]

On Friday, conservatives in the media were complaining about another headline, "Republicans seize on liberal positions to paint Democrats as radical." Several conservatives mocked the Post on Twitter.

An editor for Commentary Magazine pointed out that the Post was attempting to make the GOP reaction the story instead of focusing on the Democratic comments, and he said the Post article is an effort to make it seem like the Democrats' position in Virginia isn't radical.



The problem with this headline isn't "pounce" so much as it is an overt effort to frame policy shifts that would have been viewed as objectively radical, even by liberal Democrats, only 10 years ago as anything other than a radical leftward drift. https://t.co/hNaZU73sNx https://t.co/1ITknJ5deu — Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) February 1, 2019



Jonah Goldberg, an editor for National Review, simply stated, “amazing,” on the idea that the story is that the GOP "pounces" at the Democrats, instead of the Democrats themselves.





Elizabeth Harrington, a reporter for the Washington Free Beacon, said she thought she was looking at a fake headline.

“I legit thought this was a photoshopped headline,” she tweeted.



I legit thought this was a photoshopped headline pic.twitter.com/CrTOCOWFDj — Elizabeth Harrington (@LizWFB) February 1, 2019



Brit Hume of Fox News said headlines like those found in the Post have been mocked for years.



I wonder if the editors at the Washington Post have any idea that such headlines have been an object of ridicule for years among conservatives. The focus, as always, is never the behavior of the left, only the reaction to it on the right. pic.twitter.com/m1QGIwmiPX — Brit Hume (@brithume) February 1, 2019



In another tweet, Commentary's Rothman cited other examples in which the Post has focused on conservative reaction to news, instead of the news itself.

“Rothman's Law: The story isn't the story; the conservative reaction to the story is the story,” he wrote.

