When Politico reported last year that longtime friends Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, George Stephanopoulos and James Carville frequently talk on the telephone, the folks over at Newsbusters went into a frenzy. The fact that decades-old friendships sometimes involve telephone calls might strike you as mundane, but for some reason it was earth-shattering to the Media Research Center crowd, which leapt to the conclusion that a nefarious conspiracy was underway.

Since then, countless Newsbusters posts have complained about the phone calls, suggesting that Begala, Carville and Stephanopoulos are mere puppets of the White House by virtue of their phone calls with their friend Emanuel. For committing the sin of friendship, at least one Newsbuster demanded their firing:

Could it maybe be that these “news” agencies don't care if their news men are being co-opted by the White House because it's THIS White House? One run by a Democrat. And a White House run by The One, at that?

Well, I for one, am calling for ABC and CNN to fire Carville, Begala and Stephanopoulos as well as for everyone to stop considering [Stan] Greenberg's work worthy of attention.

Today, however, Newsbuster Scott Whitlock approvingly quoted Carville criticizing the Obama administration's response to the BP oil spill. But even though Carville's comments came in a discussion with Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, Whitlock somehow forgot to mention those phone calls he and his fellow Newsbusters have been so obsessed with. Maybe this will put an end to the paranoid fantasy that Emanuel enjoys a Svengali-like hold over his friends.