Politico has a big story up today about what it labels the “petty feud” between the White House and the NY Times. This battle of the upper crust in Washington and New York allegedly started with a simple error. A Times staffer got a quote for a story but attributed that quote a specific White House staffer.
According to rules set up by the White House that shouldn’t have happened. The quote was given “on background” meaning it could be generally stated to have come from an unnamed White House official but not from a named individual. The White House called the Times‘ Washington bureau chief, Elisabeth Bumiller, to complain and request the name of the staffer be removed from the story. Bumiller apparently refused, noting that the story had already been up for 12 hours. When the White House staffer tried to raise another complaint Bumiller, who was on vacation at the time, hung up…
