Fearing hoax, Ros-Lehtinen hangs up twice on Obama call

When President-Elect Barack Obama called Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at her South Florida district office Wednesday, she hung up on him.

A short time later, Chief of Staff designate Rahm Emmanuel called on Obamas behalf. Ros-Lehtinen 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 said. They got Fidel Castro to go along. Theyve gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, Oh, no, I wont be punked."

Ros-Lehtinen said she received Obamas first call on her cell phone from a Chicago-based number. The person on the line told Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, that the President-Elect would like to speak to her.

"I thought: Why would Obama want to call a little slug on the planet like me?" Ros-Lehtinen said.

A gentleman, who sounded like Obama, got on the line and congratulated her for getting reelected and was looking forward to working with her as the ranking House member of Foreign Affairs.

The conversation lasted just a minute when Ros-Lehtinen cut Obama off, telling him she wasnt falling for the hoax.

After Emmanuel failed in his quest, it finally took Congressman Howard Berman, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to convince Ros-Lehtinen that the President-Elect indeed wanted to talk to her.

I asked Howard to tell me a private joke we share about colleagues in the House to make sure it really was him, Ros-Lehtinen said. When he did, I realized it was the real deal.

Ros-Lehtinen said she then told Berman: "I know this sounds very presumptuous, but please tell President-Elect Obama he can call me now and I will take his call."

--- Cammy Clark

Comments

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Idiot dinosaur partisan politician. Symptomatic of south Florida politics. she and the other out of touch Cubans who are living in the past need to grow up, get some brains, civility, statesmanship, and be true Americans, or retire, because the 55 percent of second and third generation of Cuban Americans, born here, are smarter than you and voting Democrat and will say goodbye to you very soon otherwise. Embarrassment for us all to have elected officials like this right now when we have so much opportunity to change our world. Unfortunately people like her, and others, will be left behind dangling in the wind, holding on to negative, defeatist and pessimistic views of our Americans.

[hugh morgenstein]

I love this woman. If Obama called me and I KNEW it was him, I'd take the call for the opportunity to hang up on him -- but not before telling him what a loser he is.