A Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox News, he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the show again.

He said the call had an intimidating tone. The message was, "We better not see you on again." An implicit suggestion, the strategist said, was that "clients might stop using you if you continue."

White House Communications Director Anita "I love Mao Tse Tung" Dunn said that she had checked with colleagues who "deal with TV issues" and that they had not told people to avoid Fox. This from a woman who lumps mass murderer Mao Tse Tung and Saint Mother Theresa together as her two favorite political philosophers and who does strange things with her tongue when giving a public speech. Maybe that's because it's forked, but I don't know for sure.

So, when she was asked about it, maybe she just checked with those "colleagues who deal with TV issues" that she already knew had not told people to avoid Fox. That way, her statement would be "technically true," don't you see? This president and this White House play that "technically not lying" game all the time. With them, and some other liberals, prevarication by parsing words is not a past-time; it's a passionately practiced procedure.

Oh, and in a related matter:

POLITICO's Michael Calderone reports that President Obama met with several journalists for lunch last Friday at the White House.

Administration officials David Axelrod (Senior Advisor), Anita Dunn (Communications Director), Bill Burton (Deputy Communications Director) and Robert Gibbs (Press Secretary) also attended. (Hey, why not? Free lunch, literally.)

The off-the-record lunch lasted about two hours, and included a green salad, halibut and a pear tart for dessert.

How nice! Well, first I'm just "dying" to know what they had to drink with that delicious sounding lunch. Kool-aid, perhaps? And did NYT's David Brooks check out the sharp crease in Obama's pants again -- to make sure he's still going to be an excellent president? No, don't tell me.

Second, I'm wondering why they all met in a government building, ate a meal prepared and served by government employees, at taxpayer's expense, and several government employees (yes, I mean the prez and gang) were present, yet the meeting was "off the record"? I'm guessing that's the only way they could ensure the White House talking points that were passed out would not have to be reported on, but I could just be being cynical again, as is sometimes my wont.

So entitled Ben Smith and Nia-Malika Henderson their recent TeamPOLITICO article over Van Jones' demise as Obama's so-called "green jobs czar." The article was generally okay, with examples of how the Obama White House and "lefties" in general had misjudged various things during the summer, not the least of which, apparently, was FNC's Glenn Beck's ability to kick up a stink over Obama's czars in general and Jones in particular.

However, in one of what might charitably be called POLITICO's occasional "bending over backwards to be fair" efforts, which sometimes bleed into simply being ever-so-sly Obama promoters (as when POLITICO.com's head honcho Mike Allen twice referred during the campaign to Candidate Obama doing this or that at the "Western White House" in Hawaii -- uh, can't have any kind of White House, Mikey, unless you're already the prez) or apologists for this White House and its current primary occupant, the article's authors said something I just didn't want to let pass, so I told them so.

Dear (supposedly objective) TeamPOLITICO:

"Actually the answer is simpler than that...

Van Jones founded an organization that decided to go after Beck personally by attempting to silence Beck and making a big deal about it in the national media. The choice of Jones is retaliation pure and simple. It's hardball politics and this is how its [sic] played."

No, TeamPOLITICO, it's even simpler than that...

If you're going to play apologist for the Obama White House, at least get your chronology straight. Look up the actual dates when Beck started talking and asking legitimate questions about all of Obama's czars and then when Color of Change called for its boycott of Beck.

Beck was already well into "exposing" some of Obama's czars (I think including Jones, but for your own "hardball politics" example, that doesn't really matter) when Color of Change announced its boycott of Beck sponsors in a rather obvious left-wing effort to silence Beck.

So much for freedom of speech, huh? So, it wasn't Beck who "picked on" Jones in retaliation for Color of Change's boycott; it was Color of Change which attempted to retaliate against Beck with its boycott for Beck's "outing" of Jones and others.

But Beck wouldn't be silenced and his audience, and other sponsors, not only rallied to him for it but also grew. Talk about a lefty idea which backfired!

That was the end of my comment to TeamPOLITICO about their bias.

But, encouragingly, it seems like Color of Change's thuggish tactic was just another in a string of lefty misjudgments lately. You know, like Democrat "Congressionals" calling town hallers "un-American," "too well dressed to be serious," "Astroturf," and "a mob," as well as two-thirds of Congressionals not even conducting town hall meetings with their constituents at all during the summer recess and many of the one-third who did either appearing only before specially selected, closed groups of constituents (in "gated" communities), conducting so-called "conference call town halls" rather than meeting face-to-face with their constituents, or, as one Democrat Congressional recently put it, that she was not going to give those people an audience, that she respected herself and her office more than that. Hey, Miz Democrat Congressional, that's not respecting yourself OR your office. That's just plain DISrespecting your constituents. Who do you think you are, and who do you think put you where you are? Those people are your constituents, you work for them. And if they voted you in, they can vote you out. And to say something like that is either the height of arrogance at worse or not even being a useful idiot at best.

2010 -- throw all the bums and crooks and self-servers out! Elect people who are of the people rather than above the people, who want to serve rather than rule, and who want to serve us rather than themselves.

After Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett was alerted last week by some of his viewers that they had received unsolicited emails from the WH, Garrett asked WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about it on Thursday, raising privacy issues. (As it happens, Garrett was later joined by the ACLU, of all groups. Who would have thought the very liberal ACLU and rather conservative Fox News would be on the same side of an issue? Go figure).

Gibbs gave one of his somewhat snarky and arrogant NON-answers and then basically stonewalled Garrett for the next few days as Garrett pursued trying to find out how the WH obtained people's private email addresses and why it was sending them unsolicited emails, mainly about ObamaCare.

Now, finally, the White House has provided its version of what happened. Politico.com's Mike Allen reports that WH spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement Sunday night: “We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual's behalf.” (Italics added for emphasis.)

So, the issue was raised on Thursday and surely could have been answered by someone by sometime Friday but the answer wasn't provided until late Sunday night. Talk about being able to claim credit for finally responding while at the same time trying to bury your answer out of the normal news cycle!

And did you notice that, once again, it's not the White House's fault? Heaven forbid that this White House should ever admit it made a mistake, much less actually and intentionally did something wrong. No, no, no, this time people's private email addresses were obviously but inadvertently obtained by the WH because, while these people didn't specifically opt in to receiving WH emails, they had apparently signed some kind of petition, letter, etc., etc., at some time or other, which some third party organizations (vague and kind of hard to trace, eh?) sent to the WH. So, it was these appropriately amorphous third party organizations' fault, you see -- NOT US! (What kind of ether do these people breathe -- and do they think if they pump enough of it into the news cycle that we will inhale it, too?)

Awww, now see, here I thought I was so "special" because I got three -- yes, THREE -- unsolicited emails from the WH, one from Obama and two from Axelrod. I was just SURE that I had earned a place on SOME kind of WH "enemies" list. Oh darn! Well, guess I'll just have to keep trying.

Just as I can't get over Axelrod's appearance somehow reminding me of a door-to-door salesman of some kind (Fuller brushes? Electrolux vacuums?), Gibbs reminds me of the overly large, overly self-important, overly privileged and overly boorish frat boy I sometimes ran across during my college days. You know the guy -- his daddy made sure he got into the right school and the right fraternity, had the right kind of clothes, the right kind of car and plenty of money, etc., but his daddy couldn't disguise the fact that his little boy wasn't quite as smart as he was arrogant and wasn't quite as polished as he was just plain used to being privileged and pampered.

You may also remember that the WH recently asked Americans to notify it of any "fishy" info, mainly pertaining to health care/insurance reform, that their family, friends or neighbors might casually mention or repeat. Well, the only thing "fishy" to me about the WH explanation of this latest apparent disregard for citizen privacy is that most of the organizations for and with which I've signed petitions, letters, etc., have specifically (in accordance with privacy and anti-spamming laws) stated that your email address may be requested for purposes of notifying you that your petition has been sent or for sending a copy of your letter back to you, etc., but that it will not be published or released to anyone else.

So, how do you explain that, Mr. White House Spokesperson? Anyone?

AFTERTHOUGHT: A poster named roxsteady claimed on Politico.com that Major Garrett and Fox News (I guess, along with the ACLU) were idiots for raising the question of the WH sending unsolicited emails to citizens and sought to excuse the WH by saying it is simply known as SPAM.

But isn't SPAM wrong, even illegal? Why, I think there are even LAWS.....and stuff.....against it. So, roxsteady, are you saying that Garrett, Fox News, etc., are idiots for even asking the questions, but the WH is okay for spamming its citizens, if in fact that's ALL it's doing?

Get a grip and stop excusing the Obama White House for everything. After all, normally AFTER they're CAUGHT, they do enough of that for themselves, usually by blaming someone -- and sometimes it seems, anyone -- else!