White House Press Corps Gleeful Over Cheney's 'On Background' Miscue

This comes to us from U.S. News White House correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh:

The White House press corps is buzzing about Vice President Dick Cheney's latest fuss with the media. As we reported here yesterday, the White House posted a transcript from a "senior adminsitration official" that was very clearly Cheney. And there is no small amount of glee among reporters that the secretive veep was identified as the source of some not-for-attribution comments -- by himself.

On a flight on Air Force Two from Afghanistan to Oman yesterday, Cheney gave reporters on his plane an interview, but insisted that they identify him as a "senior administration official." The reporters felt they had no choice but to go along. Up to then, they had gotten only about 20 minutes' access to Cheney on the very expensive nine-day trip and wanted something from him directly. (To be fair, he talked at length on the record to a TV network during the jaunt, but basically stiffed the rest of his media entourage.)

In his remarks, the "SAO" didn't break any news, but described himself as "I" -- a giveaway that Cheney was doing the talking. This caused guffaws around official Washington and in the press corps when the official transcript was e-mailed by the White House to reporters around D.C., as is the custom on such trips. Example from that transcript: "Let me just make one editorial comment here," the senior official said of the vice president's talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. "I've seen some press reporting that says, 'Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.' That's not the way I work. I don't know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn't know what I'm doing, or isn't involved in it. But the idea that I'd go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business."

The incident also raised fresh questions among reporters about why senior officials can't talk on the record more often -- as in Cheney's case. But White House officials held to their argument that sometimes an official prefers to talk on "background" to protect his or her identity and discuss sensitive matters with more candor than he or she would otherwise.

Etc.: Libby Trial Reflects a Secrecy-Obsessed Administration on USNews.com