"Vetting" the caller

[yumyumtree]

I was listening to Mark Levin this afternoon and a caller claimed to have had a job doing daily presidential briefings at one time.  Naturally, as a suspicious cynic, it occurred to me that callers on talk radio can claim to be anybody or anything, though I had no real reason to doubt him. So at the end of the call, Levin says, "I'd like to send you a copy of my father's  book but then I'd have to ask for your real name and address and I don't want to and and don't want to know it." Then he quickly adds, "But we did vet him to make sure that he is who he says he is." Huh? This sounded like something you'd hear on Noory's show.  How do you "vet' a caller without their real name?  Or am I just really ignorant about these things?  I know that the internet makes it possible for people working on talk shows to do research and pull up information really fast, but still. Don't they really just have to take the caller's word for it?

[West of the Rockies]

Oh, my guess, YY, is that Levin probably has only the modest respect for his listeners and assumes they're too dense to catch his chicanery.

[Gd5150]

Sounds like Levin was practicing sarcasm.

[aldousburbank]

Sounds like Levin was practicing sarcasm.

Wait, he always is. Isn't he?