There was a recent episode of House of Cards where the protagonists were exposed in the media over something. They came up with a false cover story, but they also deliberately bungled their response (asked another party to deny the claims completely, then somewhat contracted them in their own statement). The reasoning was that people would smell a cover up if everything was too neat.

I wonder if Dorian Satoshi used the same tactic. Once a journalist discovers him, he tacitly admits to being the Bitcoiner, then in his next public statement retracts this and says it was a misunderstanding. Now everyone's going about saying the real Satoshi would never have responded to the journalist like that.

Probably not but arguably it would be the best way to handle the situation if you wanted the story to blow over.