From the Washington Post’s “Andrew Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff” today:

“[Andrew Card has] been here 5 1/2 years. The average tenure of chief of staff is two years,” said a senior administration official, who spoke before the announcement, but refused to be named so as not to upstage the president. “Change can be good and necessary and that’s what they had discussed.”

This is D.C. game-playing. No one can “upstage” the President — he’s the President, for goodness sake.As long as reporters let policians use them this way, readers will be settling for less info than they ought to get. If Mr. Secret Source was Dick Cheney, this quote can probably be taken to the bank. But it could be anyone, so readers have really no idea if the source is reliable.