White House Press Secretary Dana Perino (10/1/07):

Q: …This weekend the New Yorker magazine came out with an article claiming that this summer the President, or at least the White House in general, asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans to attack Iran. Is that true?

MS. PERINO: Look, you know, I’m glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it.
[...]
Q But the article very specifically said that this summer in a video conference — secure video conference with Ambassador Crocker, the President said that he was thinking about “hitting Iran” and also –

MS. PERINO: …I’m not going to comment on any possible — any possible scenario that an anonymous source, you know, continues to feed into Sy Hersh. I’m just not going the do it.

Unnamed administration officials spinning reporters on background: Standard operating procedure

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist reporting comments of unnamed officials: No go.