Ever leave an extremely personalย voicemail for someone, only to have what you thought was a private message broadcast to complete strangers — or even worse, your friends? You know, maybe something about a burning sensation when you pee, or that you think Jack Black is actually funny? We could understand how the public broadcast of such things might be embarassing, but Hair Balls can’t understand the White House’s problem with a simple mazel tov Barack Obama left for Mayor Annise Parker being leaked to YouTube.
Parker told Sirius/XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile this week that “I got a curt call from someone in the White House wanting to know how the president’s voicemail got up on YouTube.” When she told the shady official she had no idea, Parker said, he replied with “Well, when the president leaves a private communication, it should stay private.”
We just wonder where Voicemail-gate ranks on the administration’s list of priorities — if it’s maybe two notches above figuring out how a dude got on a plane with a bomb in his jockeys and just below scheduling another trip to Copenhagen.
And, really, the Prez didn’t say anything objectionable on the recording — it’s not like he called up Parker to remind her that he is in fact not her bitch, and that it is her responsibility to purchase her own french fries.
The White House’s concern over the voicemail, combined with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s e-mails to AIG when he was still with the New York Fed, gives us the sneaking
suspicion that Obama and senior officials have been leaving
confidential messages all over the place, and it’s only a matter of
time beforeย everyone in al-Qaeda can just hop on Gawker to find out
where the troops are.
Which reminds us — we never returned Rahm Emanuel’s call from the other day. Something about hookers and crack. ย
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2010.
