For Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the voice on her cell phone sounded eerily familiar.
“He sounded just like Obama,” she said on Thursday, referring to President-elect Barack Obama.
Sensing she was the victim of a spoof by a South Florida radio station, she promptly disconnected the call.
Trouble was, it was Obama.
A chagrined Ros-Lehtinen told the Fox News Channel that she also hung up on Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, when he called her back to explain it really was the next president on the line.
Both Emanuel and Obama tried to convince her the call was for real.
“Guys, it’s a great prank, really,” she said she told them.
It took a subsequent call from California Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to finally convince Ros-Lehtinen to talk to Obama.
Apparently, Ros-Lehetinen was even concerned about Rep. Berman, requesting he relate a private joke between them as a sort of password.
I suppose, given the prank call to Sarah Palin in the run-up to the election, one might … but, no. Wait. I’m sorry, but while the idea of French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling a vice-presidential candidate is perhaps a bit strange, is it really so rare that an American president, or president-elect, might be calling a member of Congress?
Is this a bit of paranoia? Just … I don’t know, maybe?
And is it worrying? I mean, is this an omen of things to come? After all, at some point, Democrats and Republicans, or Congress and the White House, need to start trusting each other. Or am I just being paranoid?
B.D.'s Last Refuge 