Prank Call? Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hangs up on Obama

Posted by David Lee in Politics | 3 comments

Obama : Hello this is Barack Obama. I just wanted to ….

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: Yeah right (click)

Seem like after Sarah Palin go phone pranked people are getting a little trigger happy with the end call button on the phone.

Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen received a phone call from Obama yesterday to wish her congratulations on her re-election. Unfortunately  Ileana thought it was a prank and hung up. She apparently thought it was one of those  radio station pranks when the resident shock -jock gets you to believe he is someone famous.

Now this story would still be funny is it ended there, but of course this had to drag out long enough to really put the icing on the cake.

Next Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel called trying to get her to accept the call. She promptly hung up on him too.

”I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,” Ros-Lehtinen told the Miami Herald. “They got Fidel Castro to go along. They’ve gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, ‘Oh, no, I won’t be punked’.”

It was only when Howard Berman, a fellow member of her committee, called her that it dawn on her that the call just might be real.

“I asked Howard to tell me a private joke we share about colleagues in the House to make sure it really was him,” Ms Ros-Lehtinen said.

“When he did, I realized it was the real deal.”

Obama then called her back, and she finally took the call.

“He laughed a lot, saying ‘in Chicago they do it all the time – I don’t blame you for being sceptical’.”