In Search of Cheney's Brain

The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, spoke to members of the American media on Air Force Two during his recent Middle East visit. But he insisted that he would speak only as long as he was indentified just as a "Senior Administration Official," not as "The Vice-President." Apparently he doesn't want to be associated with his own quotes.
However, the ploy backfired because he identified himself, and then spoke of himself in the first person during his opening statement, pretty much destroying his attempt at being anonymous:

"Let me just make one editorial comment here. I've seen some press reporting 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."

Why Cheney, who has always spoken on the record as the Vice-President since February 2001, now wants to be an anonymous Senior Administration Official, is unknown, although there probably have been many times in the last six years when Bush had wished that Cheney had spoken anonymously.
Jeffery Feldman comments more on this story here, and the offical White House version (of an Interview with a Senior Official, released by the Office of the Vice-President no less) is here.