White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stopped just short of accusing the New York Times of journalistic malpractice on Monday after the paper ran excerpts of a Pentagon memo on Iran.

Gibbs’ gripe: the paper ran the story without having possession of the entire document.

On Sunday, the Times published an above-the-fold A1 story on a January memo written by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, warning that the U.S. needed to develop a more comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. The paper cited an unnamed administration official calling the document a “wake-up call.”

Gates later said the Times “mischaracterized” and distorted his intent in drafting it.

“To write an entire story… without actually having seen the memo… [I]t’s fairly extraordinary,” Gibbs told reporters during his daily briefing, describing the memo as part of the “regular” planning process.

“Those of us who opened up the newspaper and saw what this memo was characterized to be… I don’t think there was a moment that you would read that and think the New York Times was in the ballpark,” he added. “I do find it fairly astounding that someone could leak something and say here’s what the memo says and nobody [has seen] the memo. It’s a pretty amazing thing to lead the New York Times Sunday coverage.”

Peter Baker, the Times reporter at the briefing, said the story was clear on its sourcing and characterized the report as “straightforward.”

Gibbs’s statement comes at a sensitive time. Last week he met with members of the White House Correspondents Association to discuss complaints about media access — and a day after the Washington Post published a Gibbs interview in which he complained about the behavior of some reporters.

“Am I unhappy with the way I deal with the press?” Gibbs asked at Monday’s briefing. “No.”

He then added: “This is the most transparent administration in the history of our country… As long as there’s a press and a press office there will always been some level of adversity.”

(Source: Politico)