Fox 5 has a pretty good gig on Thursday mornings, when it gets to grill Mayor Adrian M. Fenty one on one. This morning’s edition is fantastic and includes a little seg on Hizzoner’s reaction to our Loose Lips story on the Department of Parks and Recreation employee who claims he was fired for busting out Fenty’s kids for being in the wrong hoop league. But I’ll leave the extended commentary on that matter to the surely imminent Loose Lips Daily.

What really got me about this morning’s Fenty-Fox tilt was an exchange about transparency in the administration in the context of the firetruck controversy. Fenty was asked why councilmembers were complaining so loudly about an opaque executive branch, and the here’s how things went from there:

Fenty: “I like to tell people, you know, just in general, that if you measure anything by the one or two things that don’t work, you’re gonna have a skewed view on things. I think that …if you look at all the things that are open; I mean, how many press conferences do I have a week, you guys are at all of them? How many things are published in the register. How many hearings does my administration go to? If you look at all the things that happen—-you’re at like 99.5 percent. There’s just absolutely some things that, you know, slip through the cracks.”

Fox 5: “So you think this slipped through the cracks?”

Fenty: “Well, what I always tell people is you can always do better, so if anyone’s criticizing my government saying you can do more, I accept that criticism and agree with it. And we will work hard in the future. But try to measure the government on everything that is happening and working well, transparent and otherwise.”

Dear Mr. Mayor: It’s that “otherwise” part that everyone’s so concerned about.