Thursday, December 04, 2008

Off to a good start

"'ello? I am zee prezident-eelect. Ees zis Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen?"

Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-18) was so sure the phone call she received from someone claiming to be Barack Obama was a prank that she promptly hung up on him. When another person claiming to be Rahm Emmanuel called back moments later, she gave him the same treatment.

I don't think this is the ideal definition of "off to a good start"!

Ros-Lehtinen later said that she was convinced it was a joke perpetrated by "...one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks."
Finally, an aide told Ros-Lehtinen she had an urgent call from Chairman Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Still suspicious, Ros-Lehtinen urged the California Democrat to recount a story only both of them would know.

Berman passed the test — and told her she had, in fact, hung up on President-elect Obama.

"You are either very gracious to reach out in such a bipartisan manner or had run out of folks to call if you are truly calling me and Saturday Night Live could use a good Obama impersonator like you," Ros-Lehtinen joked with the president-elect.

The whole "Sarah Palin pranked by phony Nicolas Sarkozy" thing has gotten GOP lawmakers a little paranoid, I think. But after all, Ileana is simply a Congresswoman and not the VP nominee, so it's possible that she's being just a little TOO cautious, maybe even borderline crazy.

Or maybe she's being crazy like a fox, and she knew that by hanging up on the president-elect a few times, she'd get her name mentioned across the country. Hey, it worked, obviously. I'd never heard of her before.

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