I'm down with whitespace changes in parts of the code that are changing anyway (assuming the whitespace changes are to improve consistency), but I agree that whitespace changes in random spots like this just make the review more challenging. Also, this lining up the equal signs thing is another one of @thatcher's style choices, though I think the code isn't consistent enough about it that it's probably worth taking them out.

If you really itching to do some whitespace cleanup, perhaps that can be another patch.

That said, you don't need to go back and undo the white space changes that are already in this patch… This is more a comment for future reference.