It's the president calling

IN THREATENING Congress once upon a time, President Obama said he had a pen and he had a phone.

He vowed to use the phone to organize people to light a fire under Congress and use the pen to veto any bill it sent him that he didn't like.

He can keep the pen, but maybe he ought to lay off the phone.

There's a simmering controversy, mostly on the right, concerning who gets the phone calls - and who doesn't.

Making a call to the president of Kenya in April to express condolences for the massacre of 147 people at a college by Islamist terrorists seemed to be OK, but it did open the door a crack for the loons who continue to insist he was born in Kenya. (I don't necessarily mean Donald Trump, but I don't exclude him either.)

I was curious about when Obama makes condolence calls, and why. What stimulates the call? Is it emotion? Politics? Both?

I requested from the White House a log of personal condolence calls made by the president since the beginning of last year.

"We don't have a log of condolence calls to provide, these are private conversations that we typically don't release publicly," emailed a spokesman.

During my later research I found a "private" condolence call, made by Obama to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the death of his father, which was released. I emailed the White House to clarify which calls are released and why.

Crickets. It's funny how any bureaucracy can go completely silent when asked a direct question.

Not having access to the log sent me scouring the Internet for calls that have become publicly known. Easiest to find were those made to world leaders. Those have a way of surfacing.

It's the ones to private citizens that can cause trouble.

Conservative critics of the president have complained that he called the parents of Michael Brown, shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo., to express condolences for the death, but he did not call the parents of San Francisco murder victim Kathryn Steinle.

While I found a statement of condolence from Obama to the Brown family, I found no evidence of a personal phone call.

Obama did call - and invite to the White House (in an unforced PR error) - the parents of released captive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Conservatives (and others) are seething that he, as commander-in-chief, has not made phone calls to the families of the murdered service personnel in Tennessee. He did issue a statement of condolence, as he did following the local Amtrak train wreck.

He called the New York City police commissioner after two cops were assassinated. He called to support NBA player Jason Collins after he came out as gay. He famously made a call to Georgetown University graduate student Sandra Fluke, who campaigned for free birth control, after she was ridiculed on national radio by Rush Limbaugh.

He did not call the family of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle after he was murdered by a veteran he was trying to help.

He didn't call me on my birthday.

We are living in an era when everything is politicized, both calls made and calls not made.

If the president expresses personal grief for one victim, is he expected to sympathize telephonically with every victim?

Do his choices reflect public policy, personal predilection or both?

He lives in a bubble, but also a fish bowl. His whereabouts and his guests are logged. We know more about his movements than he knows of Sasha's and Malia's.

It's a sucky situation, but I'm sure Obama will continue to call anyone he wants.

And all should be released.

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

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