Vice president's residence: All clear now

by Mark Silva and updated

Talk about "transparency."

The view from above the official vice presidential residence in Washington was, in the days of the notoriously secretive Vice President Dick Cheney, well, pretty fuzzy. He may not have lived in an undisclosed location, but good luck seeing it.

Things have gotten a lot clearer lately, from a bird's-eye-point of view, at the vice presidential residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Since last week, with the inauguration of Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama, the overhead view - courtesy of Google Earth - has cleared up considerably.

Once obscured by pixilation of the image displayed on Google Earth's globe-trotting catalog of aerial views of residences everywhere, the view of One Observatory Circle, Washington, D.C., is now nearly as clear as the Google Earth view of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House.

This appears to be none of the White House's doing, however.

"Google Earth and Google Maps are regularly updated as new imagery becomes available,'' a Google spokesperson tells Tribune's Washington Bureau. "Our most recent update, which went live last week, included updated imagery of the Washington D.C. area from several providers.''

Google's earth-scanning images come from third-party suppliers, she notes - "some of which may blur images before they provide them to Google.''

"We strive to publish the best data possible, and take into account many elements when determining what imagery is optimal, such as imagery date, resolution and clarity,'' she adds. "We may elect to show imagery that contains blurred elements where we determine that the image quality overall is the best.''

Credit the folks at the appropriately named Gawker.com for the story. And thank Digital Globe for the clearer view of the gracious residence at the center of the observatory grounds on a hilltop in Northwest Washington.

Built in 1893, the Naval Observatory has provided the official home to vice presidents since 1977 -- Walter Mondale then. The observatory itself still operates, providing "a wide range of astronomical data,'' according to its own Web-site, and also serves as the official source of time for the Department of Defense and anyone else in need of the time.

A spokesman for Vice President Biden was not immediately available, however.

It seems that Biden's official residence is viewable from space, but his official office was incommunicado this afternoon because of a telephone system breakdown, according to the White House press office.