NY- REPUBLICAN lawmakers are accusing the New York Times of “unethical and potentially criminal tactics” because a Times reporter made monkeys of them after secretly eavesdropping on a conference call between them and Gov. Pataki.

In the resulting article, published Thursday, the Republican state Senate leaders came off as disrespectful, two-faced and immature, and more interested in “guffaws, political scheming and fraternity-style horseplay” than in Pataki’s announcement he would not seek a fourth term as governor.

Times reporter Al Baker described in the story how he was invited to listen in to the conference call by an unnamed “Republican operative.” Pataki’s decision had already been leaked to the press, and Baker reported that just before Pataki got on the line, one of the senators asked, to an eruption of laughter, “What are we going to hear, what we read in the paper this morning?”

Other choice quotes Baker extracted from the conversation included a senator asking who was going to the Saratoga races that afternoon, and one unidentified “colleague” of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno asking him, “Did you get that Mercedes I had delivered to your house?” That presumably was a joke. Bruno also thanked another senator he called “Billy” for a tie.

Post State Editor Fredric Dicker reports that John McArdle, director of communications for the state Senate majority, fired off a letter to the Times invoking the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal and claiming, “The Times reporter joined the conference call, never revealed that he was listening to the conversation and in doing so, may have committed a felony.”

In an e-mail to Republican senators, Mark Hansen, a press aide to Bruno, wrote, “The Times printed Baker’s story about the conversation, despite repeated, strong objections by the Senate press office.”

A Times spokesman says: “Al Baker’s story gave readers an amusing glimpse behind the scenes at the way government officials deal with each other in private. We were within bounds legally and ethically in accepting our source’s invitation to listen in.”