A few minutes later I received an unintended reply. The producer had meant to forward my message to her associates - but the forward button is so often hard to distinguish from the reply button!
From: Giti Sorayyapour Date: August 7, 2008 10:40:17 AM EDT
To: David Frum
Subject: David Frum: absolute bastard!!!
I wrote back to thank the producer for her very illuminating reply - I could not have asked for a more emphatic confirmation of my suspicions of the production’s actual intentions.