Art critic Michael Kimmelman of the Times allows that he may have agreed to these terms. I don't really remember that. But, I mean, he might. The practice appears to be fairly widespread. A journalist friend reports that a recent interview with a State Department official was followed by several faxes back and forth in which he and the source struggled over the language that was to be attributed to the source.
Political stature has little to do with it.
I got the same demand from William Wilson, former mayor of Rancho Mirage, California, as he sat in his son's patio-furniture store. Quote approval is best understood as a marker of journalistic independence, or the lack of it. The city rooms of monopoly newspapers have the aura of insurance companies, and the romance that once surrounded investigative reporters today seems to have attached itself to journalists who write about celebrities and sometimes befriend them. For another thing, the immediacy of television news makes print reporting seem that much more negotiable. Journalism may be the rough draft of history, but sources know that several revisions take place before the draft is circulated.