[ethigSmimbine]

Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, who was a Duke University trustee for 13 years (including three as chairman), resigned Friday [4/27/07] after his name turned up in a little black book of clients of a prominent D.C. escort service. As the Bush administration's former "AIDS czar," Tobias promoted abstinence and faithfulness in African and Caribbean countries and downplayed condoms as a way to curb the transmission of HIV. According to ABC News, Tobias said there was "no sex"—just massages. He says he recently switched to a service "with Central Americans" providing the massages.

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Con...d=oid%3A115119

[KinicsBonee]

OPINION
May 01, 2007

Bush's management style allows for incompetence - but not massage

By Matt Stearns
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Apparently, a penchant for massages is the one thing that President Bush cannot abide in an underling.

Arranging a massive pay raise and promotion for a girlfriend? World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz "ought to stay," Bush said. "He ought to be given a fair hearing."

Admittedly muffing management of the Justice Department, then forgetting key details when a miffed Congress demands answers? Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job," the president said.

The planning and execution of the Iraq war and its aftermath? Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer and former CIA Director George Tenet kept their jobs long after their foul-ups became apparent. Bush awarded all three the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

But Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, who quit the day he admitted to getting massages - and only massages - from an escort service?

"He resigned, and it was the proper thing to do," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday.

Thus is revealed the management philosophy of the CEO presidency. Favoritism, ineffectiveness and misleading Congress: OK. Massages: Not OK.

"Bush just doesn't like to make these hard decisions," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University. "In order to get fired in the Bush administration, you need to have hatchet in hand, the corpse in front of you, your fingerprints all over the handle and a photograph of the act in progress."

Speaking of acts: It's possible that Tobias is more culpable than he's letting on. The service from which he ordered his massages is run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who's facing prostitution charges in Washington. She released phone records to buttress her defense that her escort service was a legitimate business. (That's how Tobias was pinched, metaphorically speaking).

Snow wouldn't say whether he believed that Tobias got only massages. But others seemed to get far more leeway. Even the administration's most infamous public flameout, former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, resigned only after the president told him he was doing "a heckuva job" in the devastating wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Barbara Kellerman, an expert in leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said it wasn't unusual for people who perceived themselves as tough, top managers to have a hard time firing people.

"They're reluctant to face the music that inevitably ensues. . . . Firing them is openly saying `I made a mistake,'" Kellerman said. "Whether it's a policy stance or chosen people, rigidity has been a serious issue for this administration."

If rigidity is the problem, you'd think they could use more massages, not fewer.

© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...hington_nation

[aaafluochugh]

"When the White House heard about this scandal, they were relieved. Finally, a Republican caught in a sex scandal with a woman."

[Edwardthe_third]

Senator's number on escort service list



AP Photo: Sen. David Vitter, R-La.

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
July 10, 2007

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, whose telephone number was disclosed by the so-called "D.C. Madam accused of running a prostitution ring, says he is sorry for a "serious sin" and that he has already made peace with his wife.

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said Monday in a printed statement.

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there — with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

Vitter's spokesman, Joel Digrado, confirmed the statement Monday evening in an e-mail to The Associated Press after a statement purported to be from Vitter was received by to the AP bureau in New Orleans.

It said his telephone number was on old phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates before he ran for the Senate.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey is accused by federal prosecutors of racketeering by running a prostitution ring that netted more than $2 million over 13 years, beginning in 1993. She contends that her escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, was a legitimate business.

A Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar, the 46-year-old Vitter was elected to his current office in 2004, becoming the first Republican from Louisiana elected to the Senate since Reconstruction. He represented Louisiana's 1st Congressional District in the House from 1999 to 2004.

Vitter and his wife, Wendy, live in Metairie, La., with their four children.

Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, told the AP, "I'm stunned that someone would be apologizing for this." He said Palfrey had posted the phone numbers of her escort service's clients online Monday, but that he had not been aware Vitter's number was among them. Vitter's statement was sent to the AP's New Orleans bureau Monday evening.

Palfrey's Web site contains several pages phone records, but no names, dating from August 1994 to August 2006. Palfrey wrote on the Web site that she believed a disk containing the records had been pirated, and said she was posting the records "to thwart any possible distorted version and to ensure the integrity of the information."

Palfrey revealed details of her escort service on ABC's news magazine "20/20" on May 4. At the time, ABC said it could not link any information provided by Palfrey to members of Congress or White House officials but did find links to prominent business executives, NASA officials and at least five military officers.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/...itter_dc_madam

[chadnezzrr]

oooo. This is getting good! I just want to see if any big names are going to fall.

[mybooboo]

Boys will be boys.

[uwJzsM8t]

i am sure there are congressmen throuhout washington literally crapping themselves over this one...

[boffincash]

Leno had one of the best points/lines on this.

Vitter (if this is the only one that was recently outed) said he was not going to say any more about the incidents out of respect for his wife.




Hows that for one mother of a hypocritical response!

[jelena-nanana]

Nuke a bag of popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show. This will be good for a few laughs.

[littlePen]

Flynt and DC Madam Target Political Sex Scandals
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
DC Makes for Strange Bedfellows

By Jeffrey Jolson



HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 7/11/07 — “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who has been looking for a way to make up some of her legal bills, has a deep-poecketed new partner: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

He is always on the lookout for Washington sex scandals and says he wants to expose Washington hypocrites, and Palfrey has a long list of people who probably qualify. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) became their first victim when a Flynt investigator linked his name and honorable title to an old telephone number on Palfrey’s client list.

Vitter went on TV yesterday and stated he had sinned in his past and “God has forgiven me,” as if the Lord thinks hookers are ok as long you apologize to your constituency when you are outed.

“In the context of Louisiana political missteps, this is a ripple, not a wave. Let’s not forget that they have a sitting member of Congress under indictment,” said one senior Republican House aide, referring to Democratic Rep. William Jefferson and the $90,000 found in his freezer.

Vitter’s exposure on Tuesday should put any other conservative Republican with church links on notice: Start practicing your mea culpa, to cop a line from the Politco.

Flynt’s first, successful 1998 sex-scandal bounty hunt, was conducted at the height of the sex-driven impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton. With a promise of millions but a payout of less, Flynt managed to expose the sexual promiscuity of former House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois, former impeachment prosecutor Bob Barr and — his biggest catch of all — the almost-Speaker Bob Livingston, another Louisianan, who confessed to adultery and resigned from Congress when he was on the brink of succeeding Speaker Newt Gingrich. (Gingrich’s affair was not exposed by Flynt; that came later)

But lawmakers took a similarly dismissive stance nearly 10 years ago, until big heads started to roll, the House Republican leadership became paralyzed by damage and fear of further bombshells, and then-Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson began shouting for a Justice Department investigation of Flynt’s campaign.

Indeed, one Senate Democratic office staff is said to be gleefully organizing a pool for this year’s sequel, according to Politco.

The threat this cycle is particularly potent because Flynt has two ways of digging up the dirt: He and his team are plowing through Palfrey’s client telephone list and, separately, he is once again offering a million-dollar payoff to anyone who can provide documented evidence of “illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder.”

And like all political scandals and porn, this is likely to end up with a voter shift and a money shot.

[singleGirl]

Flynt: Hustler involved in more than 20 sex scandal investigations

07/11/2007 @ 5:34 pm

Filed by Nick Juliano

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt said Wednesday that investigators working for the magazine are involved in more than 20 investigations relating to his recent call for information on Washington sex scandals.

The investigations include "high ranking Republican and Democrat members of the Senate and the House," Flynt said at a press conference in Los Angeles, in which RAW STORY participated via conference call.

"We've got some really good information here," he said.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., revealed Monday night that he had been a client of alleged "DC Madam" Deborah Jean Palfrey after reporters working for Hustler called him about the allegations.

"If somebody's living a lie ... they become fair game," Flynt said, referring to Vitter's "family values" stances and opposition to same-sex marriage.

Flynt said his investigations were not meant to be witch-hunts against frisky members of Congress -- "I don't care what their sex life involves," he said -- rather the goal is exposing hypocrisy.

"Unfortunately we have too many of these guys in Congress, and I'm going to do my part to get them out," Flynt told reporters, adding that he doesn't mind spending his own money to do so.

An ad that ran in the Washington Post last month offered $1 million from Flynt for information about people who had an illicit affair with elected officials. Flynt said Wednesday he paid $150,000 to run the full-page advertisement.

The exposure of Vitter came from Flynt's cooperation with Palfrey in securing a complete list of her phone records, not in response to the Post ad, Flynt said.

Referring to his past court battles over indecency charges, the hardcore magazine publisher said the government "did everything it could for 15 years" to put him behind bars.

"This is payback time," he said. "And payback's a bitch."

[Rithlilky]

Why is anyone surprised? Polictics & Sex have gone hand-in-hand, (some say gland-in-gland), forever, its nothing new!

We had the Profumo affair back in the early '60's:

http://www.reminiscethis.co.uk/profumo.htm

It's interesting that despite the fact that he was Secretary of State for War and shared a prostitute with a London-based Russian spy, the reason he was sacked was not the actual sexual antics but the fact that he lied in Parliament when he gave a statement to the House of Commons!

[ORDERCHEAPVIAGRASOFTWARE]

Lies are corrosive ...

[TepSteade]

No one is surprised. The point here for Flynt is the hypocrisy of the "family values" and "moral high ground" mantra of the Republican party. It's all a load of hooey and it's delightful to see these guys humiliated for not practicing what they preach.