Senior Gingrich campaign aide Newt Gingrich (Mike Stewart - Associated Press) The New York Times shines a light today on the editorial thinking of the New Hampshire newspaper the Union Leader. Have a look at these graphs from the story, about Newt Gingrich’s M.O.:

Even though Mr. Gingrich publicly insists that he will take the high road with a positive campaign that does not criticize other Republicans, he recently strayed from that vow, offering himself as an anonymous source in a New Hampshire newspaper last week to reply to criticism by John H. Sununu, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush who, as a Romney surrogate, has called Mr. Gingrich “untrustworthy and unprincipled.”

Mr. Sununu told the newspaper, The Union Leader, that Mr. Gingrich supported a tax increase deal that the first President Bush made with Democrats in 1990, then reversed himself. The newspaper, quoting a source identified as “a senior aide in the Gingrich campaign,” elaborately rebutted this account.

Mr. Hammond said the source was actually Mr. Gingrich, who did not want to be identified to avoid the impression he was getting into a fight with the Romney camp.

So Gingrich himself, as far as the Union Leader is concerned, works as a “senior aide in the Gingrich campaign”? Attempts to get Union Leader to comment on the matter haven’t been promising. Politico’s Dylan Byers rung up Publisher Joe McQuaid and got shamed for his age:

“Do you disagree with the report in the New York Times?” we asked.

“The Union Leader does not disclose its sources. How old are you, kid?”

“I’m 25.”

McQuaid took a different tone with Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone — perhaps because Calderone’s seven years older than Byers: “ ‘Don’t know about you or the Post or the Times, but the Union Leader does not disclose its sources,’ McQuaid told The Huffington Post in an email.” McQuaid issued pretty much the same response to the Erik Wemple Blogger, who is 47: “The Union Leader does not disclose its sources.”

McQuaid is acting all defensive because he has a lot to be defensive about. If the Times has it right — and McQuaid’s responses suggest it does — then the Union Leader lied to its readers. Under no possible splicing of the English language does Newt Gingrich qualify as a “senior aide” to his own campaign. A “senior aide” advises the candidate and can be fired from the campaign — neither of which can possibly apply to the candidate himself.

Perhaps the paper could have called him a “source” or, to use a cheesy formulation, “someone familiar with the campaign’s strategy.”

But if the New Hampshire paper really wanted to comply with the no-name thing and give its readers a fair shake, it should have used a more honest descriptor, something like:

● The highest-ranking possible source in the Gingrich campaign.

● The most arrogant source in the Gingrich campaign.

● A source in the Gingrich campaign with crazy sociological theories.

● A source in the Gingrich campaign who’s picky about where he sits on Air Force One.

● A source in the Gingrich campaign who has written 21 books.