Fox News reports that members of the press who were interested in listening to Hillary Clinton’s views on the NATO summit were accidentally given a phone sex number.
In a press release, the White House accidentally listed a sex line number for journalists seeking an “on-the-record briefing call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones to discuss the NATO summit.” But after dialing, a soft-voiced female recording that was clearly not Clinton asked for a credit card number if you “feel like getting nasty.” …
Asked for comment about this mishap, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton responded: “A corrected phone number on a press release is probably one of the stupider things FOX News has covered lately.”
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What are the odds that an arbitrary telephone number provided to reporters just happens to ring at a phone sex service? It would be interesting to compare the original number mistakenly provided to the press with the real, corrected one. If they are radically different, then the typographical error hypothesis can be safely discarded and the “lookup error” possibility becomes increasingly likely. A wrong record error is returned when the “where clause” is wrong. That’s to say, the phone sex number was in somebody’s Rolodex or electronic phone book, but the wrong number got looked up; or alternatively somebody did a cut-and-paste but the previous contents of the buffer somehow surived into the paste.
Just goes to show that in a complex system that “if there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong” or “nature always sides with the hidden flaw”.
I am most disheartened by the comments of this knownothing idiot, Bill Burton who made the point well that he is indeed a Jerkhoff. Is is some kind of wierd turn of events that has all these Obama staffers openly stupid. Every one lives to say something, to slap, to irritate. Why??
I’ve been regaled with many stories about the rustic old days in Canberra — which is the Australian capital — in the innocent years just after the Second World War to illustrate the simplicity of those times. One story was about a man hired to protect official secrets — a counterintelligence chief, really, in the early days of the Cold War. He went to Prime Minister’s office to speak to him about his new job, only to find the office unattended. Calling around, he finally found the Prime Minister at home (the PM had forgotten the appointment) and had his intended meeting there, presumbly in the kitchen over cookies and tea or whatever it was they drank back then.
Another story was about how another Prime Minister’s private number was coincidentally very similar to that of a butcher’s. From time to time the phone would ring for the butcher and the PM would cheerfully give the caller the right number after politely listening to an order for chops and steaks. Why aren’t stories about wrong numbers in modern Washington never to the butcher’s or the flower shop or the automotive repair shop, but to places of ill-repute? Maybe because then the press would never cover it. Or maybe because those aren’t the sort of wrong numbers that turn up in certain circles.
I’m just thinking. If your wife asked for a number you could be reached at and you gave her a sex phone service number, it would hardly do if you tried to explain it away by suggesting it was one of the “stupider things” she was curious about.
Sexual escapades in Washington DC are nothing new. Bureaucratic incompetence in Washington DC is nothing new. So, combining the two should be no surprise.
Has Maxwell Smart been transferred to the White House, by any chance?
So, FOX is the stupid one?? I’ll leave it at that.
By the end of the four years this administration will provide enough material to keep SNL going for a few years. At least as far as the laughs go, we’re getting our money’s worth. About the other thing can can achieve is slapstick humor and various faux pas.
Maxwell Smart On The Phone
What’s he listening to?
Once I read that the newly installed crisis phone rang and Kennedy picked it up and said “This the President.” The voice on the other end came back, “The President? I was looking for a French laundry.”
Of course the phone sex number was from a staffers address book list and the reason they are in full denial “That is my story and I’m sticking to it and Fox are all big doody heads” mode is not because of concern over security clearances or violation of the law. What the guilty party fears is ridicule by the aged 20 something staffers for being uncool and a loser or a witch hunt by those they fear more than Attorney General Holder’s FBI, the feminist left who consider pornography violence against women and all male activity as rape. The progressives are far more regressive and puritan than the conservatives are.
Remember how the left were hugging themselves in glee in anticipation of Bush being embarrassed or acting boorish when his Yale class came to the White House, because one of them was a trans-sexual? Remember how flawlessly gracious Bush was? The woman who now calls herself Petra approached and said “Hello, George. I guess the last time we spoke, I was still living as a man” without missing a beat Bush replied to his guest “But now you’re you.”
Thread worthy, from NRO, The Corner.
The Shameful Disenfranchisement of the Military in New York’s Congressional Race by Hans A. von Spakovsky
The debasement of the voting franchise of the free citizenry by the use of fraud, corruption, alien registration, felon voting. absentee ballot manipulation, motor voter fraud and other means has become a major threat to the legitimacy of the constitutional order.
LOM-
I had never heard that Bush anecdote; it accords with much of what I’ve learned about him since we were at Yale together. (I was in the graduating class, 1969, a year later than his). I didn’t know him, but since one of my close friends was from Houston, I heard a lot about him, most of which seemed motivated by envy and snobbishness (not from my friend, but from others).
It was both a great strength, and a terrible weakness, that as president he never defended himself against the scurrilous attacks to which he was constantly subjected.
Jamie Irons
Has anyone thought of the logical explanation? Everything else in the White House is a Bill Clinton retread, and so was the phone number. But what would happen if it were the reverse? What if it had been the phone sex service that put out the wrong number?
Hello Central, give me France
The doughboys used to sing
But now it’s Central, I’ve no pants
So here’s a ting-a-ling
Connect me to a gorgeous dame
Or one who talks real nice
Or just a girl, they’re all the same
Just want a little spice
What’s that you say, the Sec of State
Is not at home right now
Have I dialed oh six oh eight
I have? Well holy cow!
Jamie Irons,
All good schools are in slums, except for Stanford, blast them.
Of course he conducted himself properly with a guest. He is Prescott Bush’s grandson. Somebody must have liked him, he was Tapped. If you were class of ’69 did you escape meeting Kerry?
His Grandfather probably would not have wanted me as a Jew at his table but if I had shown up there it is my guess that I would have been charmed and left unaware of how mush he disliked me.
When I copy things to my blog I get to clean up the typos.
Why isn’t the rest of live like that?
LotM, it CAN be, but you have to go outside and sing “Somewhere, Over the Rainbow”.
Has anyone thought of the logical explanation? Everything else in the White House is a Bill Clinton retread, and so was the phone number
Unlikely. Bill Clinton prefers to stalk the staff – campaign volunteers, subordinate employees, interns.
They probably learned more calling the original phone number than they did calling the revised one. Both sites spouting BS, just the first more entertaining.
When I worked in LA the LA times published a story on a courier company, said that they were looking for drivers, and gave our office phone number. Needless to say, the phone rang off the hook for days.
Wretchard’s story about the PM brings to mind one I heard years ago, straight out of Get Smart. In WWII a British intelligence operation had an office in the back of a candy store. An British operative looking for it knew it was in candy store on that road but not exactly where. He went into the first candy store he saw and asked if there were other candy stores on that road. The lady running the shop replied “Are you looking for the one that has British Intelligence in the back?”
What do you expect? Incompetentcy in D.C. with the White House Staff and members of Congress. Putting the wrong message on the answering machine, how stupid is that. And the bigger fool is Bill Burton for calling out Fox News for airing it. Of course, CNN and MSNBC will not air it, because they get thrills up their legs and everywhere else when it comes to the Obamas (you know the new Jackie and Jack). Obama and his peeps will get a pass for the next 4 years because god forbid we criticize the “annointed one”
I am flipping the channels because I can’t stand to watch this Obama and his bull speeches, and what do I come across, QVC selling pearls and quote the host, pearls are in thanks to Michelle the Belle Obama, the new Jackie O. Michelle cannot even compare to Jackie or any other first lady for that matter, no maybe Roslyn Carter
Another possibility that no one seems to be considering is that an unknown person deliberately inserted the phone sex number as a RF aimed at the Hildebeast, our Secretary of State.
April Fools, there is no Madam Secretary of State!
West Wing was a TV show about a fictional presidency. One episode the top two speechwriters were writing a speech where the president introduces the VP candidate after the current one had to resign. Neither one of the speechwriters thougth highly of the man and could not come up with a good speech. They started making a mock speech telling what they really thought of the man, time became short and they accidently sent the mock speech to the telepromter. The president was able to cover being an old hand at politicing. Point is maybe someone in the whitehouse is not pleased with the Secretary of State and thought it would be a good joke to send an internal memo with the wrong number and it was accidently sent out instead of the proper number.
Blaine
Two thirds of a century ago my Father was a Squad Leader (Sergeant) but a few years older than most and unlike most enlisted men had been to college. The orders finally came for the invasion of North Africa so he found himself marching next to his Colonel (who 6 months earlier had been a bank Vice President) as the men moved to the waiting troop ships. My Father asked if he knew where they were going and got the reply, “Hell Charlie I don’t know anything around here.” One of the English girls who was standing on the curb waving to the departing Yanks called out, “Oh Colonel your unit is going to land at such and such a place on such and such a day.” They did the paperwork.
So what if Hilary is leading a double life?
Why aren’t stories about wrong numbers in modern Washington never to the butcher’s or the flower shop or the automotive repair shop, but to places of ill-repute? Maybe because then the press would never cover it. Or maybe because those aren’t the sort of wrong numbers that turn up in certain circles.
Yes, because it’s the Guatemalan cook who orders the pork chops and the Ukrainian driver who gets the brakes done, and neither one of them has time for phone sex. Anyway, I didn’t realize Elliot Spitzer was on Hillary’s staff.
By the end of the four years this administration will provide enough material to keep SNL going for a few years. At least as far as the laughs go, we’re getting our money’s worth.
I have to disagree Fred. If Obama were running merely George W. Bush sized deficits, I might agree. On the other hand, deficits aside, the rest of the Obama administration is expensive at any price.
JMH,
didn’t you get the memo about deficit?
Deficit by Bush – bad, all money/wealth went to the BIG GUYS
Tripled (at least!) Deficit by Obama – good, all money/wealth spread to the public
What could go wrong??!!
/s
First the reset button, then the “who painted it”, now a sex-shop wrong-number insert. Once is happenstance, twice is co-incidence, three times is enemy action.
There’s somebody or somebodies on the Secretary’s staff looking to undermine her & justify her early and swift replacement by an actual Obama partisan.
I’m with Hangtown Bob [0607 hrs].
It’s a fair assumption that Dear Leader has his long-time staff minions, and doubtlessly Clinton brought along her ‘loyal circle’ in with her. It’s no state secret that those two respective camps would just as soon gut each other as pass the salt and pepper.
Who knows, maybe this was payback for the dvd gift set [somebody had to have said, 'here's an idea...'].
The only guess now is whether the Potomac River will run red before or after the mid-terms…
I hate to admit it, but this may be one of those times Occam’s Razor has a malice-driven hand gripping it tightly.
Mitch H [1056 hrs]
I’m not sure that’s the case.
This may be an example of Hillary’s crew vs. the Foggy Bottom ‘house staff’. For all the accusations of ‘Bush is an idiot’, I don’t recall a parade of gaffs dogging the previous administration [and yes, you DAMN WELL KNOW that if this level of 'amateur hour' state-craft was present during Bush 43, we'd have heard about it 1000 times already...]
No, this is a probable case of the ‘in-house’ assets being at the bottom of the last page of the current phone list; and the old pros KNOW it.
Lesson #1: don’t diss [or piss off] the custodial staff, they’re the ones who know where the TP stockpile is hidden, among other things…
EXCELLENT Post Wretchard.
One of the big problems in the West is the decline of the middle class and middle class sensibility, into decadence.
Attitudes towards sex are now permissive, and critically, women, who used to be social gatekeepers of acceptable sexual expression in public are not the main consumers of risque entertainment: “Diary of a Call Girl,” “Weeds,” “Breaking Bad,” “Rescue Me,” “Nip/Tuck” and so on have a largely female audience and depend all, on icky and risque sexual situations.
That Hillary’s people have sex line phone numbers is a certain indicator of the decadent nature of the elites. They are not middle class, and in fact HATE middle class values just as much as Marie Antoinette did.
Again my point that a lack of sense of humour is a dead give-away of lack of smarts. Sure, all other points are valid, from whiskey above to the theories re: RF’ing by various competing groups. But the fact that the spokesman couldn’t find the humour:
“Here’s Your Sign!”
#6 Fred,
The odds of SNL picking up on the gaffes of Hussein Pasha & Co. for jokes are pretty minimal. After all, they are just as in the tank as the rest of the Dem Stream Media.
Subotai Bahadur
I’m not even going to hazard a guess on this particular White House screwup. But I know firsthand how something like that can happen unintentionally. Yes, I toil as one of those MSM dinosaurs at a Midwest metro daily (I’m one of the few right-of-center newsroom folks there). Several years ago I reported a short story on how people can call the IRS to get help on their tax issues. Naturally, I included the toll-free IRS number. One issue: the only difference between the IRS help line and a phone sex line were the area codes 888 and 800. Guess which one I allowed to get into print … To this day, I can’t explain it since I took normal precautions, including dialing the IRS number before sending the article off to be edited. I can laugh about my boneheaded mistake now. The readers who called me to complain weren’t so, um, forgiving. Anyway, Wretchard, this was a fun post and was followed up by great comments as usual!
Whiskey, I think you give television too much credit. Sure, it’s a mirror of the culture, but any woman will tell you, the mirror lies. We count on it. Not to mention the words “icky and risque” don’t exactly fit the occasion – we’re talking about Hillary Clinton, who is single-handedly responsible for the drab, dykey look that is today considered the epitome of professional grooming among women in middle management. Please. The only tabloid-worthy shenanigans I envision for her are of the sort that arise from bonding with Susan Rice over the village thing. Maybe.
What I’m really hoping for is that she lives up to my Lucrezia Borgia fantasies for her – I would very much enjoy watching the Democratic party turn itself inside out as the Truth About Himself becomes known and I’m counting on Hillary to play a pivotal (if yet to be clearly defined) role in this psychodrama. God bless her, there are no depths to which she will not sink.
i don’t think she sinks, mary –i see her in full scuba gear, head down, kickin’ them flippers like mad, streaming bubbles like a steam engine
That’s very good, buddy! LOL
There has to be a musical comedy in this somewhere..
“Stinking in the Reign” ? (apologies to Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds)