WaPo: U.S. Officials Scrambled to Nab Snowden ("Decision to Force a Foreign Leader’s Plane to Land")

[struggle4progress]

108. You read the article carelessly

... “The best play for us is him landing in a third country,” Monaco said, according to an official who met with her at the White House ...
is about as close as the article gets to a potentially-defensible quote: it at least puts definite words in the mouth of a definite person, although it doesn't make clear whether the anonymous source "who met with her at the White House" actually ever heard her utter those words or is reporting second- or third-hand

... The official ... added, “We were hoping he was going to be stupid enough to get on some kind of airplane, and then have an ally say: ‘You’re in our airspace. Land’ ” ...
which has definite words but no indication of who spoke the words, so the “We were hoping” is rather uninformative. Does “We were hoping” mean some official working group recommended that the US try to get an ally to demand the plane land, or does it mean "My co-workers and I had a chat about this one evening in a bar after work"?

... U.S. officials thought they saw such an opening on July 2 when Bolivian President Evo Morales, who expressed support for Snowden, left Moscow aboard his presidential aircraft. The decision to divert that plane ended in embarrassment when it was searched in Vienna and Snowden was not aboard ...
falls into completely different territory. It doesn't attribute specific words to a specific named person. It doesn't claim to paraphrase a specific named person. It doesn't allege that someone anonymous said specific words. It doesn't claim to paraphrase someone anonymous. It doesn't indicate who is reporting or reading the thoughts of any alleged officials. Does it mean "Several officials said they had thought they saw such an opening"? Does it mean "An anonymous source said several officials thought"? Does it mean "This reporter inferred that US officials thought"? Note that no one is ever actually quoted as indicating Morales plane was forced down: the language seems entirely that of the reporter

You seem to have no idea what a hardball game "leaking" can be in DC. A sentence like “The best play for us is him landing in a third country,” Monaco said might contain all manner of Tiger Pits. For example, it is possible that Monaco said something very much like that, in a meeting with various other persons, one of whom is known for over-using the phrase “the best play”; that the anonymous had a contact who attended the meeting; and that the quote was altered slightly to misdirect attention to the person known for over-using “the best play.” As far as I know, Monaco may have made this exact statement or a statement very close to it. But that doesn't shed much light: Snowden faces federal charges and is therefore regarded as a fugitive abroad; it is not unusual for the federal government to attempt to obtain such fugitives; about seventeen are returned to the US each week, it seems

I just don't know what the story actually means. And I saw enough vague "officials think" stories in the lead-up to the Iraq war to develop a certain amount of skepticism about such stories