So, Randall Tobias, head of USAID, immediately resigns after being exposed as a client in the DC Madame case.
For, “personal reasons”, and mighty quick, although he states that he used the service for “massages, and no sex”.
This story seems to be flying under the radar, I was surprised to not see it here on the SD. The worst part is that this idiot has been presiding over an agency that oversees reproductive health care in Third World countries, including AIDS prevention in Africa, where it’s a major problem. I’ve listened to friends who work for USAID funded organiizations, and clinics, and have heard the horror stories of cutting in funds for any clinic that doesn’t go with the Abstinence route advocated by the Bush administration. It’s fucking insane, to go with that tactic, rather than educating safe sex practice, like basic condom use. People, who could be helped otherwise, die, because of this administration’s moral abuse.
But, one of the main tactics was to villify prostitutes, so we can all feel good about where the USAID money goes. Tobias has much to sayabout that in how to handle sexually spread disease. And now, here it is bouncing right back on his ass. A simple massage, yep, right.
Here’s another incompetent fool who spouts an unattainable morality for everyone to kowtow to , with detriment to those in his charge, and falling on the misthrust of his own needs, running away with tail between legs. Fuck you Randy, for setting back decent Health Care for people who really need it now.
On All Things Considered, Monday afternoon, they ran a short piece on the “DC Madam” and how she turned over her phone logs to ABC to let them run down her clients. (She said she could not afford to do it herself.) They noted that she had apologized to the Tobias family, but she said she could not permit her clients to remain anonymous. She insists that there is no prostitution associated with her business and she wants to compel (subpoena, if necessary) as many public figures as possible to testify at her trial that they were not engaged in sexual liaisons. (I wonder how many are going to exclaim, “No! I was humping my escort and it would be wrong to deny it!”)
I read about this in the paper this morning. I had a good chuckle over how she had turned over her Black Book so her clients could “testify on her behalf.”
I had no idea that giving the finger to Washington power brokers was what that really meant.
I wonder if Neil Bush is in there, or if he only gets his prostitutes in south-east Asia
Sounds like the standard “plausible deniability” defense of common pimps and madams; “I just took $150 for them to go into a room alone together for an hour, I don’t know WHAT they did in there.”
:rolleyes:
Not that it’s a big surprise, but I guess brains weren’t a prerequisite for his job, or he might’ve known actual therapeutic massages cost HALF what a hooker costs. Nice try Tobias, you dipshit. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I think they’re pretty despicable. I don’t condone or approve of individuals seeing call girls, but I’m tired of this Washington game of “let’s let the public know what you’re doing in your bedroom.” What that leads to is impeachment of Presidents who were doing their jobs well. I don’t specifically blame the madam for this, I think ABC News ought to focus on more serious subjects that, say, actually have an effect on people’s lives.
And her tactics are simply crass and self serving. Because a judge won’t give her $150,000 so she can go hire her own lawyer after she fired her public defender, she decides to take it out on her former clients. All in all, I guess it is true what they say: sleep with pigs and you’re going to get dirty.
Yeah, and they were so squeaky clean to begin with! Those poor, poor victims of paying for an orgasm. When will the world wake up to their plight and turn against the horrible pig-whores forcing them to pay for sex!
I suspect it’s about as true as Ted Haggard’s purchase of meth that he never used. (And having not used it, asked to purchase some more, which he would also presumably not use, before long becoming addicted to purchasing and discarding the drug.)
Or of Clinton’s failure to inhale. Or of this guy’s continued denial that he was doing anything untoward in an airport bathroom stall with a guy he’d just met via Craiglist, when interrupted by a plainclothes cop.
Seriously, isn’t there (or shouldn’t there be) some kind of threshold where the ridiculousness and implausibility of a denial become more damaging than simply admitting “yep, you got me”?
(He asked, naively, well into the second term of the George W. Bush Presidency…)
I agree 100%. The policies he implemented are simply wrong. But ABC isn’t reporting on that. At all. The stories being run are nothing more than shallow titillation – hell, the reporting makes the stories about Wolfowitz look like Woodward and Bernstein are closing in on the most influential investigation of the century. Tobias should be criticized for being wrong on the issues, but instead the only content to the news here is his sexual peccadilloes. For all my fellow Democrats, what happened to our lament in the late 90s that in Europe, people have the ability to separate public and private lives?
I really see this whole game of using personal behavior to destroy political opponents of nothing more than an outgrowth of schoolyard bullying. I my mind, it would be like following Rush Limbaugh around and calling him “Fatty Fatty Fat Fat” because someone doesn’t like what he was saying, and knowing that calling him names will be hurtful, but hardly bothering to debate what he actually says and does.
In any case, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the madam revealed his name because of any policy differences she had with him. I see no motivation here beyond personal spite for former customers.
(I will add a few things: I’m not arguing that Tobias should have stayed in his job . Also, if Tobias or anyone else broke the law – I don’t really care to debate what exactly he did and whether that’s a good or bad thing – he should be prosecuted to the same extent that the madam is. I’m simply saying that delighting in the sordid behavior of others – and worse yet, trying to wrap it into any substantive issue – is highly distasteful to me.)
Jackass political flunky is getting his knob professionally polished while publicly advocating holier-than-thou sexual morality and fucking up international family planning and disease prevention efforts, you’re goddamn right he’s having an effect on people’s lives, and he deserves to be strung up in the public square.
While I agree with you to some extent, I don’t think that’s a good description of this particular case. I don’t think the madam is trying to destroy political opponents. I think this is just a case, as with Haggard, of people sucking up to the most self-righteous and judgmental people in the country (the James Dobsons, etc.) and then getting burned by it.
I find that very amusing. People who use sex as a political weapon getting burned by sex as a political weapon isn’t the fault of the people standing on the sidelines.
This story gives the fees charged by the “DC Madame” as $300 for 90 minutes, which comes to $100 per half hour. Even a licensed massage therapist rarely charges more than $50 for a 30-minute massage. In fact they rarely charge more than $100 for an hour, unless they work in an upscale place and/or clientele.
Also interesting, this story also says Palfrey collected around $750,000 in six years. For D.C., $125k a year is not big money, even if she wasn’t paying taxes. My brother makes more than that working a legitimate job. I would’ve thought she’d take in more, given the size of her clientele and pool of “employees.”
What annoys me about this whole thing is not that some 60+ man paid for sex–I think SOME form of prostitution should be legalized. What annoys me are the insulting lies people like Tobias tell after being caught. Like I said, he thinks people will believe he paid $300 for just a “massage”? Give me a break. He’d been better off just keeping his mouth shut and saying “no comment.”
Of course, Palfrey is a real piece of work too. There’s no way in hell she’s releasing her client list to “prove there was no sex.” She’s doing it so her powerful clients will move behind the scenes to quash her prosecution, for fear of being implicated in it. Of course, it’s just as likely someone will find her dead one day. She’s ballsy, crazy, and stupid, all rolled into one.
Don’t forget that he bought the meth he didn’t use from a prostitute he didn’t fuck.
As for Tobias, he didn’t say what the girls were massaging, or what they were massaging it with. A good masseuse will work on whatever area is stiff, right?
I think the OP’s point, though, is that the hypocrisy involved is a substantive issue. Here’s a guy who’s in charge of implementing a very draconian and puritanical policy on foreign aid that requires funding recipients to espouse strict restrictions on sexual behavior in order to get aid money—even when the restrictions will actually make their aid efforts less effective, e.g., by forbidding reproductive-health programs targeted to sex workers.
And at the same time, this spokesman for the anti-prostitution cause is getting massages from escorts. How is that not hypocritical, and how is that hypocrisy not a substantive political issue? Don’t we have the right to hold Tobias accountable for the damage his behavior does to the credibility of US aid policies?