You gotta wake up pretty freakin’ early in the morning to fool Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen!!

In case you were wondering who the hardest person in America to successfully prank call is, we now know the answer.

Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the most senior Republican woman in the House of Representatives, hung up on both President-Elect Obama and future Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in separate incidents yesterday.

And not because they offended her with their pinko liberal ways; because she was all, “you can’t fool me, prank calling Florida talk radio hosts!!! President Obama, my ass!”

According to CNN, the Congresswoman “convinced she was being prank-called by a Barack Obama sound-alike – hung up on the actual president-elect Wednesday.

[Rep. Ros-Lehtinen] was told by an aide that Obama wanted to speak with her. According to a statement released by her office, the Republican congresswoman cut off the caller, telling him she thought “this is a joke from one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks.” She then hung up.

Obama’s future White House chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel – a fellow congressman – then called her to let her know she’d actually been speaking with the future commander-in-chief. Ros-Lehtinen, convinced the call was another hoax, hung up on him, too.“

At which point an irate Emanuel undoubtedly plunged a steak knife into his desk, bellowing “Dead! Dead! Dead!!!!!!”

The best part of the story is when the President-Elect had one of Ros-Lehtinen’s congressional colleagues call her to say, “Obama ain’t playin’.”

While Rep. Howard Berman is the chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs committee, of which Ros-Lehtinen is the ranking minority member, he’s still a relatively unknown figure that radio goof-offs wouldn’t think to impersonate.

Not good enough for the least gullible woman in the world, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen!!!

She demanded to know the top-secret pinky-swear Congress password!

The CNN report continues, “an aide told Ros-Lehtinen she had an urgent call from Chairman Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Still suspicious, Ros-Lehtinen urged the California Democrat to recount a story only both of them would know. Berman passed the test — and told her she had, in fact, hung up on President-elect Obama.“

Obama thought all this was hilarious, and they finally got down to business.

Although we doubt many of you know much about Ros-Lehtinen – we sure didn’t – it seems that if Obama intends to reach across the aisle on issues of foreign policy and immigration, the most prominent Cuban-American congresswoman is a good place to start.

Of course, she didn’t burnish her image any by issuing a poorly-spelt press release about her skeptical ways, in which she referred to her would-be callers as “Barak Obama” and “Rahm Emmanuel.”

(To be fair, CNN spelled Emanuel’s last name wrong too! See above.)