[olliemb]

What is a senior administration official--White House, CIA , State or what department? It seems that the reports say senior administrative officials and then Dana Milbanks in Post states 2 senior administrative officials talked about WHite House officials and then Novak says the contact was not the White House nor a partisan senior official.

With everyone trying not to break their source I am confused as to who are senior officials vs White House officials. Anyone have an idea?

[piasa]

"Senior officials" is very, very general. This can refer to appointed people OR regular bureaucrat types, partisans of any party or not, in any branch of government, executive, legislative or judicial, past or present.

The term Novac used, "senior administration officials," is less general, but still very broad. It refers to appointed people OR bureaucrats in the executive branch of goverment, but they can be partisans of any political party. In other words, in any department, NSA, CIA, FBI, Energy, Education, EPA, etc, past or present.

"Senior Bush administration officials" would be even less general, but still broad. It refers to appointed people OR implies bureaucrats in the executive branch of goverment, but they can be partisans of any political party. In other words, in any department, NSA, CIA, FBI, Energy, Education, EPA, etc, serving during EITHER Bush 1's administration or Bush 2's.

"Senior W Bush administration officials" or "current administration officials" is still broad. It refers to appointed people OR implies bureaucrats in the executive branch of goverment, but they can be partisans of any political party. In other words, in any department, NSA, CIA, FBI, Energy, Education, EPA, etc, serving during the time of George W Bush's adminsitration.

"Former senior officials" refers to appointed people OR implies bureaucrats in the executive branch of goverment, but they can be partisans of any political party. In other words, in any department, NSA, CIA, FBI, Energy, Education, EPA, etc, who are not currently serving the current administration. This could be people who served under previous administrations or could even be people who served the current one but left the executive branch of government before the reporter published the article.

What's the difference between a senior official and an official? Depends on a reporter's integrity, I suppose, or his need to hide his source's ID. What the reporter considers senior may vary from reporter to reporter. Just remember that the more senior a reporter implies his sources are, the higher the reporter's status. The more so if the reporter's sources have a tendency to be spot-on accurate. And remember that reporters can be played by nonauthentic or once authentic but no longer good sources too, sometimes even for years. (Not to mention that reporters are themselves partisan and may occasionally fabricate, as we saw with Blair of the NY Times.)