Yeah. It's less "opinion journalism" and more "dig journalism". They are essentially trying to punish their political enemies by using every chance to mention the political stance of the enemy in question, so that the readers of the publication (who largely share their political opinion with the journalist) categorize him as "the enemy" rather than judging his work without prejudice.

It's a particularly dirty form of culture war. Rather than restricting their political disagreements to articles about the subject matter "out in the open", these journalists sneak in opportunities to throw shade at people in articles that aren't about politics at all. And in this case the journalist even has the gall of adding a faux innocent "Oh I’m not raising these points to get a dig in".