Alex Johnson – Journalist at Large

Did somebody get to Joe Biden?

In an interview Thursday on msnbc TV, the vice president essentially pooh-poohed the WikiLeaks dump of classified State Department cables, saying that at worst, they were “embarrassing”:

“I don’t think there’s any damage,” Biden said. “I don’t think there’s any substantive damage.”

(Here’s the full transcript.)

Overnight, the vice president — who’s never been known for what politicians call “message discipline” — may have been reminded that the official White House line is that WikiLeaks is a Bad Thing. Friday, he was gravely denouncing the leaker in an interview with NBC News.

The leaker “has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world. He’s made it more difficult for us to conduct our business with our allies and our friends,” Biden said in an excerpt of the interview, which airs Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

“For example, in my meetings — you know I meet with most of these world leaders — there is now a desire to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room,” Biden said.

“It makes things more cumbersome. And so it has done damage.”

(As always, any views or speculation here are strictly my own, not those of msnbc.com or NBC News.)