Methinks that the DC press corps is salivating over this one (via ABC’s the Blotter): D.C. Madam Wants Washington Clients to Testify:
The woman charged in a federal indictment with running a high-class Washington, D.C. call girl service says she plans to call her prominent clients to testify at her trial.Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the D.C. Madam, says among those she will call to testify are Randall Tobias, who resigned Friday as deputy secretary of state after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of Palfrey’s escort service.
Tobias said he “had some gals come over to the condo for a massage” but denied any sex was involved.
Also on Palfrey’s list of customers who could be potential witnesses are a Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists and a handful of military officials.
And this may qualify as one of the lamest explanations I have heard in a while:
Tobias said he “had some gals come over to the condo for a massage” but denied any sex was involved.
Yep, that’ll fly.
Of course, I must confess, while I find the whole thing to be personally unacceptable, I am not really sure why it is illegal–consenting adults and all that…
Not to mention that there are better uses for tax dollars and prosecutor’s/judge’s time than worrying about whether some middle aged man got a “massage” from someone willing to provide said service for a fee. Again, I have moral objections to the enterprise and would hardly recommend such a career, but what the exact public harm is is unclear to me and always has been.
Technorati Tags: DC Madam, Jeane Palfrey, Randall Tobias
April 30th, 2024 at 10:54 am
I basically agree with your take on this story. However, after the whole Monica/Clinton scandal and family values slant to the last couple of elections, there are probably a lot of Deomocrats anxious to see conservatives and Bush officials in a sex scandal.
April 30th, 2024 at 10:56 am
There is no doubt about that!
April 30th, 2024 at 11:04 am
Again, I have moral objections to the enterprise and would hardly recommend such a career, but what the exact public harm is is unclear to me and always has been.
I am pretty much with you on this–although I have no moral objections to prostitution when it involves consenting adults.
The only thing that makes it noteworthy is to expose the stupidity of the Administration’s abstinence programs–of which Tobias was a key advocate. He was the State Department’s “Aids Czar” and routinely justified the exclusion of preventive health measures to combat AIDS in favor of “abstinence.”
This “Just Say No” approach is shown to be even more idiotic when Tobias gets caught in these dalliances.
April 30th, 2024 at 12:33 pm
i agree with you as well…i don’t really care who does what with who or what…i’d just as soon the government stay out of my “bedroom”. however people in postions of power like tobias who was pushing abstinence and anti-prostitution initiatives, and ted haggard, and mark foley deserve to called out on their hypocrisy….and lest you think i’m biased i’m sure there are some dems as well…
April 30th, 2024 at 1:00 pm
you’re not sure why it’s illegal? it’s PROSTITUTION. does that help?
April 30th, 2024 at 1:07 pm
The harm is that people who have secrets, such as a naked massage habit, expose themselves to potential blackmail.
Maybe no problem for you or me, but a high government official who has control over billions of budget dollars and maybe makes life or death decisions needs to be above reproach.
A lot of espionage cases start this way. I’ve seen people lose their security clearance over less.
April 30th, 2024 at 1:28 pm
Yes it is the hypocrisy of the right rearing its ugly head once again…at least no pages this time!
April 30th, 2024 at 1:40 pm
Ben,
My point is that I ultimately do not understand why prostitution is illegal.
Patrick,
Of course, the reason that there is blackmail potential is because it is an illegal activity. Further, there is plenty one can do that is legal that might still be embarrassing. As such, that isn’t a very good argument.
BTW: I agree that this is a real story. My musings were simply that ultimately I don’t see the point of making prostitution illegal.
April 30th, 2024 at 2:10 pm
Ok, imagine I am a Chinese agent. I follow a high US government official who is, everyone thinks, happily married. I take pictures of him entering a hotel room with his mistress. Maybe I bug the room and get real evidence.
Has he done anything illegal? No. He is merely a cad.
I let him know I have these pictures and copies will be mailed to his wife unless he gives me some minor, innocuous documents from his agency. He does so in order to avoid embarrassment and save his family. No harm in giving out the janitorial schedule, right? He thinks it will end there. It does not.
I keep upping the ante, demanding more and more important things. He is now trapped and can’t stop without a) having his wife learn of the affair and b) having the world know he is committing treason.
This is how espionage is done, and it happens all the time. People die as a result – all because Mr. X couldn’t keep his zipper up.
April 30th, 2024 at 2:17 pm
What does that have to do with prostitution being legal or illegal?
April 30th, 2024 at 2:26 pm
Nothing. I was just explaining why the Tobias “massage” is more than a personal matter. Security managers have to think about these things even if it is not a police matter.
April 30th, 2024 at 3:04 pm
Patrick, your imagination is indeed a good one. Can we be sure you are not, in fact, a Chinese spy?
April 30th, 2024 at 3:05 pm
Would you like a prostitute to solicit her customers outside your house? Would you be okay with a brothel operating next to your child’s school? Please truthfully answer these questions with out playing devil’s advocate.
Assuming your answer is no to both questions, I would posit that you wouldn’t because living with or being exposed to sexual commerce is repugnant and deliterious to a harmonious community (spreading disease, ruining marriages, funding organised crime, etc.).
You might offer that there are places where it is legal and government regulated (Nevada & The Netherlands). Very true. In these places it is regulated and restricted to specific areas (akin to commercial zoning) such that if one were to engage in it outside these areas it would become illegal again for the same reasons stated above. In such a place we can all choose not to live near prostitution.
If you truthfully answered my first two questions, and your answer was no to both of them, AND you agree that there was no alternative (asking her to condct her business in DC’s non-existant “red light district”) for the people living, working, playing, etc. in close proximity to her many, many roaming prostitutes than I find it rather unfathomable how you can still argue that society (i guess thats the State to you) should not make prostitution illegal.
April 30th, 2024 at 3:13 pm
And a quick note to #3 “Ratoe”
When does prostitution not involve consenting adults?
There are names for sex that doesn’t involve consent.
They are rape and slavery.
April 30th, 2024 at 3:16 pm
I would be opposed to street solicitation, but it isn’t like the only choices here are prostitutes on every street corner versus no prostitution whatsoever.
I don’t want people selling insurance door to door, but that doesn’t mean that my neighbor can’t have an insurance agent over to his house to do business.
For that matter, I don’t want married people engaging in sexual activity on their front lawn, but what they do in their own bedrooms is their business.
And there are a lot of things that one might not want sold in front of a school that might still otherwise be legal (condoms, R rated movies, Marilyn Manson posters, whatever).
April 30th, 2024 at 3:20 pm
BTW, by your logic alcohol and gambling should be illegal as well as they can contribute to the same negative effects.
And my point isn’t that I think it is a social good, but rather I don’t think it needs to be illegal.
April 30th, 2024 at 3:36 pm
I didn’t say that there weren’t any choices between prostitutes on every corner and no prostitution. I stated that there were places where it is legal and accordingly zoned and that DC isn’t one of them.
Further, inherent in your opposition to street solcitation is an acceptance of laws prohibiting it.
I didn’t ask you ELSE you didn’t want sold in front a school. I asked you if you would be okay with a brothel operating next to a school and you did not answer that question.
Instead you tried to equate prostitution (which, once again, is associated with very with grave societal ills …disease, ruining marriages, organised crime, etc) with condoms (which help prevent disease), R-rated movies and pop music posters (which are legal, subject regulation and indecency laws, and near as I can tell never DIRECTLY have caused any of the problems we all KNOW prostitution does).
I am going to print this thread out and happily bring it out the next I hear a conservative assert that liberals and liberals alone engage in moral ambiguity and equivication.
April 30th, 2024 at 4:16 pm
“I am going to print this thread out and happily bring it out the next I hear a conservative assert that liberals and liberals alone engage in moral ambiguity and equivication.”
Actually, if you bring out this thread most people will walk away with the impression you’re a jerk.
April 30th, 2024 at 4:19 pm
We could have a discussion about whether or not you would prefer to live next to a liquor store or casino, but that would certainly let you off the hook of truthfully answering whether or not you would be fine with living next to a whore house, right? I guess thats the point of comparing apples to oranges, you never have to be intellectually honest and admit that you really don’t like apples.
April 30th, 2024 at 4:20 pm
Those commenting on the abistence program angle need to keep in mind those programs are for minors not adults. There is a difference between the two.
There is also a difference between lying under oath about a private sexual matter and just getting exposed by a madam. There seems to be a payback issue still in the minds of liberals who defended Clinton.
April 30th, 2024 at 4:33 pm
#18 Gold Star for Robot Boy
Actually, if you can’t appreciate figurative rhetoric you’re not that intelligent. Which is shame because I apreciate your screen name.
April 30th, 2024 at 4:34 pm
What about the names of people who:
1. Are not elected officials or political appointees?
2. Are not Republicans?
3. Are not religious conservatives?
4. Were not cheating on their wives?
5. Might nevertheless suffer significant professional, financial, social, and legal damage if their names are released?
What is the public interest in revealing their names?
April 30th, 2024 at 5:31 pm
Ben, thanks for confirming the impression that you are, in fact, a jerk.
And you’re not cool enough to listen to GbV, appreciation of figurative rhetoric or not.
April 30th, 2024 at 5:33 pm
There is also a difference between lying under oath about a private sexual matter and just getting exposed by a madam. There seems to be a payback issue still in the minds of liberals who defended Clinton.
Yup. It falls under the heading of “what goes around, comes around.” So bend over and get used to it.
April 30th, 2024 at 6:47 pm
#22 Gold Star for Robot Boy
Ha! I don’t know… I didn’t start the name calling, even if it was by solely by implication.
You’ve added so much to me and the good Dr.’s debate about the legality of prostitution by criticizing my determined inclination to print this awesome thread out. Keep up the good work. (hint- sarcasm)
And I didn’t realize one had to “cool enough” to like good music, I just thought you had to honestly like it. Thanks schooling me hipster old style.
April 30th, 2024 at 7:12 pm
Ben,
You are trying to be too clever with some “trap” based on the fact that I wouldn’t support unfettered prostitution in all circumstances. It really proves nothing. Indeed, I am not sure what your argument is supposed to be.
There are a lot of legal activities I wouldn’t want done in public on on my lawn–that doesn’t mean that I think that they ought to be illegal.
Adultery (or, for that matter, fornication) can cause exactly the same ills that you describe. Should they be illegal as well?
And I honestly do not understand what you mean here:
I am going to print this thread out and happily bring it out the next I hear a conservative assert that liberals and liberals alone engage in moral ambiguity and equivication.
What am I equivocating on? And who said my position is stereotypically conservative? (indeed, it is not).
Are you ultimately suggesting that the main flaw in my position (one that I really have hardly fully fleshed out here, if you will pardon the pun) is that I haven’t proposed a DC red light district?
April 30th, 2024 at 7:18 pm
Are we arguing about prostitution or zoning?
The issue is not whore houses, but call girls, if we are going to base our argument on the news story.
If the state has no legitimate interest in whether my neighbor comes home with a girl he met at a bar today and has sex with her, why should it have an interest all of a sudden if money changes hands?
All of the ills you note above can be just as easily transmitted by the “hook up” as with the “hooker”–yet the state stays out of one and not the other.
Please note: I am not recommending any of these behaviors, the question is what involvement the government should have.
April 30th, 2024 at 9:52 pm
my argument is thus:
1. You stated that “while I find the whole thing to be personally unacceptable, I am not really sure why it is illegal–consenting adults and all that…”
2. The activity in question is Prostitution
3. Prostitution is illegal because “sexual commerce is repugnant and delitirious to a harmonious community (spreading disease, ruining marriages, funding organized crime, etc.).”
4. This particular instance of Prostitution took place in community in which is no legal provision for its residents to avoid encountering it.
5. I asked if you would be OK “with a brothel operating next to your child’s school”. (This is not a trap, if you feel anxiety answering it then chalk it up to cognitive dissonance.) You have refused to answer that question.
6. I assert that your argument, that Prostitution in general and in this particular instance shouldn’t be illegal, is wrong because of the consequences to society already mentioned and further that you are unwilling to affirm that you would gladly live in world in which effects of your beliefs were made real.
7. I further assert that the casual nature in which you toss about the opinion/belief that prostitution is simply a matter of consenting adults and not worthy of society’s laws is emblematic of an arrogant ideology, in your case conservative with a strong libertarian bent, which values ideas more than the truth or facts.
Forgive the “proof” like nature of this post but i feel your uncertainty about the nature of my argument at this point calls for it.
April 30th, 2024 at 11:19 pm
I did answer the brothel question, although I focused on my next door neighbor rather than my child’s school (although I thought I at least dealt with it in passing). Obviously I don’t want a brothel next to my child’s school, but that is irrelevant and not part of cognitive dissonance or anything else (it certainly isn’t about anxiety). Indeed, I continue to fail to see why you place so much relevance to that question as if it proves your point. It proves nothing: there are a lot of things that I don’t want by my child’s school that might otherwise be legal. Since when is the “can it be by an elementary school?” the test of whether something ought to be legal or not? It makes no sense.
I don’t want factories, train depots, power plants or any number of other things by my children’s schools that I still wouldn’t want to be illegal. I just don’t see the relevance of your alleged slam-dunk talking point.
You have failed to address the fact that all of the ills you cite as the proof of your position are also caused by sex that occurs without prostitution, especially in the case of adultery. As such, are you arguing that adultery and sex outside of marriage in general ought to be regulated by the state?
My point is not that prostitution is a social good. On the contrary, I would consider it to be a behavior that I personally would reject as wrong. However, that doesn’t mean that the government ought to outlaw it. It certainly doesn’t mean that the resources necessary to deal with it couldn’t be better used for other uses. Government resources being a limited thing and it being wise to decide what can and cannot be remedied and how. (Heck, I don’t think that adultery is a social good either, but I don’t think that the government ought to make it illegal.)
Further, you continue to conflate the notion of a brothel with a specific private encounter in a private residence. The existence of a brothel is not the same thing as a private interchange between two adults in a private residence.
Again: you fail to address how it is essentially different for two persons to meet at a night club and return to one of their homes to engage in sexual activity and a situation in which the same activities are entered into and money exchanged. What is the difference in terms of the state’s interest in curtailing the activity? That is the essence of the debate, not whether I am defending brothels next to elementary schools.
If you want to argue, how about arguing about what the story is about, which is really about expensive call girls and not streetwalkers or whorehouses? If one goes back and reads the post again, I wasn’t musing about why streetwalkers at elementary schools should be legalized.
Ultimately I suppose it isn’t that I don’t understand your argument, per se, but would rather assert that your argument is not well constructed, whether in list form or not. Your continued confidence that it all hinges on brothels next to schools is rather weak.
You actually never do, in addition to the issues above, ever address the issue of consenting adults in the first place. Why is that irrelevant?
We might actually find common ground on the whole brothel issue (the ability, as you put it, for people to avoid the behavior in question). However, again, the story was about an activity within a person’s residence.
May 1st, 2024 at 9:13 am
Your argument hinges on several points which I consider weak. Yes the prostitutes in question were not “streetwalkers” or working in a brothel. And yes, they were “consenting adults” in a “private residence”. Yet they were prostitutes nonetheless and by trying to shift the language away from what is the activity at the heart of this discussion, sexual commerce, you are trying turn it into something else. If I am conflating a whore house and the innocent exchange you imagine then you are Polly Anna-ish in describing it like a tupperware party. How much difference is there between a whore house with many in its employ and one woman living in the apartment next door with a constant stream of Johns coming and going(a micro whorehouse)?
We as a society can choose which behaviors and things we won’t allow, yet you seem hung upon the very choosing as the problem. In essence it seems you are arguing that if we must ban one ill we must every ill regardless how much the lesser they are. Are we not intelligent enough to say that prostitution is worse for society than say R-rates movies?
When I asked if you were comfortable with the idea of a brothel next to your school (which in reality you only now answered), or house, or wherever we want to put it, the point was to extend your political ideology beyond posturing and to flesh out the world in which you would have us live in. A place where society abdicates its responsibility to intelligently order itself in the best interest of itself. If after doing that you’re OK with the place you’ve created then thats fine, your beliefs are congruent, but the rest of us can honestly judge that we probably shouldn’t follow them because of where they’ll take us.
Finally, I do think there is a difference in intent and effect between prostitution and adultery. Without dragging in outliers like sex addicts, the quantities and qualities of the interactions are different. How many more men are going to walk down your hallway to your polite little “call girl’s” door? How many more diseases will be spread through society because the profit drive in commerce rewards and requires continued and frequent success (sex in this case) with a multitude of business partners (Johns)than mere lust. This isn’t a hobby we’re talking about, its a job. And the last time I checked the mafia never cornered the market on all that money that flows from adultery.
The effects of Ms. Palfrey’s prostitution ring are harmful to society and should be illegal.
May 1st, 2024 at 10:47 am
I can live with a legitimate debate about the ills of prostitution and its likely societal effects.
However, you have mainly been arguing about zoning and specifically the placement of whorehouses. You still haven’t addressed the issue of adultery and its deleterious effects on marriage and society.
You have no offered a cogent argument over why the state ought to be directly involved in prohibiting this activity (i.e., prostitution), although you have offered some possibly good reason for regulating it.
My argument is pretty clear: on balance it ought to be up to the individual to decide for themselves whether the behavior in question is harmful to themselves. Again, one can easily argue that a whorehouse ought not be next to a school. But again, one could easily argue that a lead smelter ought not be next to a school as well. The desirability of the proximity to schools of a given activity is not a good test of whether the activity itself ought to be illegal.
Ultimately your argument is that you don’t think prostitution and think that it is not a good idea for people to be, or to employ, prostitutes. On that count we agree.
The fundamental question, however, is whether the state ought to ban it–which gets to the key question of when the government ought to involved in determining which vices we, as individuals, can or cannot have.
May 1st, 2024 at 11:28 am
“You still haven’t addressed the issue of adultery and its deleterious effects on marriage and society.”
FROM MY PREVIOUS STATEMENT I ARGUE PROSTITUION IS A GREATER EVIL THAN ADULTERY
-Finally, I do think there is a difference in intent and effect between prostitution and adultery. Without dragging in outliers like sex addicts, the quantities and qualities of the interactions are different. How many more men are going to walk down your hallway to your polite little “call girl’s” door? How many more diseases will be spread through society because the profit drive in commerce rewards and requires continued and frequent success (sex in this case) with a multitude of business partners (Johns)than mere lust. This isn’t a hobby we’re talking about, its a job. And the last time I checked the mafia never cornered the market on all that money that flows from adultery.
“You have no offered a cogent argument over why the state ought to be directly involved in prohibiting this activity (i.e., prostitution), although you have offered some possibly good reason for regulating it.”
FROM MY STATMENT ABOVE I ARGUE THAT SOCIETY, AS REPRESENTED BY THE STATE, SHOULD PRORHIBIT PROSTITUTION (BAN)
-We as a society can choose which behaviors and things we won’t allow, yet you seem hung upon the very choosing as the problem. In essence it seems you are arguing that if we must ban one ill we must every ill regardless how much the lesser they are. Are we not intelligent enough to say that prostitution is worse for society than say R-rates movies?
You seem to view the State as an unatural and foreign entity with no relation to Society whatsoever, and yet it is Society, our very Community, that creates the State out of necessity and who the State serves. Your distinction between the two is reductive and I would dare say the crux of your antagonism towards laws enforced by the State.
May 1st, 2024 at 10:34 pm
Release all the names. Cherry picking republicans is disingenuous and reeks of the usual bias evident at ABC.
Release all the names, and by the way lets go back a few more years and get records of when Clinton was in office, it is not old and done with when Hillary is running for president. That makes it relevant.
This affected moral superiority of democrats is delusional at best.
Release all the names and let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise the entire exercise is discredited.
May 2nd, 2024 at 12:44 pm
Right, right…’consenting adults’…who just HAPPEN to be riding the platform of ‘family values’ and abstinence-only education. And does this mean you’d support a law legalizing prostitution? Conservatives’ tolerance for hypocrisy is just astounding.
May 2nd, 2024 at 12:51 pm
Do not construe my statement as a defense of Tobias–that was not my intent at all.
Tobias and others on the list deserve what they get, given that regardless of the question of whether the activity should be illegal or not, the bottom line is that it is.
And yes, I would allow prostitution to be legal.
The one thing I don’t like about being on the Salon Blog Report is that people see me listed on the right-hand column and fly in here and make comments based on a host of often incorrect assumptions…
May 3rd, 2024 at 9:21 am
wow. got here off salon and as a died-in-the-wool liberal was prepared to be offended by some conservative tripe. alas, i leave a bit disappointed in some of the “liberal” responses to the good doctor’s postings.
ben, my brother, your future is paxil. it worked for me; it can work for you. but i won’t let you off that easy. addressing your original questions to the dr, let’s walk through your exercise:
Q: Would you like a prostitute to solicit her customers outside your house? A: No.
Q: Would you be okay with a brothel operating next to your child’s school? A: No.
here’s where you begin to fall down, you now assume my motives for those answers: because living with or being exposed to sexual commerce is repugnant and deliterious to a harmonious community (spreading disease, ruining marriages, funding organised crime, etc.).
unfortunately, those are not my reasons for not wanting streetwalkers in my neighborhood and brothels by our schools. i don’t want them there, because prostitution is an adult-oriented business, and i want prostitution, as well as other adult-oriented businesses, to be segregated to the extent possible from the community of minors (e.g. away from schools and residential neighborhoods). yes this means zoning.
you even give a nod toward zoning with amsterdam and nevada, but then you jump the logic shark, and you conveniently note the transition with all caps:
“If you truthfully answered my first two questions [i have], and your answer was no to both of them [it is], AND you agree that there was no alternative (asking her to condct her business in DC’s non-existant “red light district”) for the people living, working, playing, etc. in close proximity to her many, many roaming prostitutes than I find it rather unfathomable how you can still argue that society (i guess thats the State to you) should not make prostitution illegal.”
besides the fact that the first two parts of your “proof” having nothing substantively to do with the third, you biff logically in your use of verb tense in the third “if” section of your “proof”. the question is not whether there “was” an alternative (in the DC case) , but whether there “is” an alternative (prospectively re schools and neighborhoods should prostitution become legal).
there “was” no alternative in your mind, because DC doesn’t have existing zoning laws dealing with an illegal activity — prostitution — and thus, the illegal activity — prostitution — should remain illegal. this is classic “boot-strapping” (a no-no with logicians), because there “is” an alternative — change the zoning laws.
if you change the zoning laws, along with legalizing prostitution, you have addressed the streetwalker and school issues, and my policy concerns about the proper exposure to children.
of course, we could go back and debate your list of reasons why prostitution is repugnant and deliterious to a harmonious community, but if you look at your “proof” as i quoted in full above, it isn’t based on any of those reasons. logic is tough that way.
sorry so long-winded.
May 6th, 2024 at 2:07 pm
Oh boy. First saltmeat, if the mechanics of a perfectly constructed logic proof is what we are solely going to judge my argument on, fine, just don’t tip your hand so early with needless ad hominem attack. It sort of screams out that your critique isn’t so hot to begin with, no? So no, I don’t suffer from clinical depression or any other mental illness, my sympathies to your plight.
On to my argument, which was about why prostitution should be illegal and moreover why it has to be illegal in this case. First of all, I don’t literally assume YOUR motives but offer a fairly obvious line of reasoning (which I happen to agree with) to give the DR. something to either refute or accept. If I had to make an argument just with YOU about the reasons you give I might structure it differently.
As the case was the Dr. barely could muster (eventually) more than that although he would answer no to both my questions he just doesn’t think one should tell anyone where they can or can’t do practically anything from smelting lead to selling condoms.
Your other beef with my argument is the was/is conundrum. Even though we were talking about prostitution in general, we were also referencing a specific case. Was it illegal then, is it illegal now, yes. Could it not be in future, maybe. Ms. Palfrey still broke (past tense) the law. Am i trained logician? No, I am merely making a political argument as best I can. Your profound dissection of my argument along its finer mechanical construction completely avoids having to address the ideas and values behind it (you even admit as much at the end of your post!)
My inclusion of the concept of zoning illicit activities was inelegant but meant to address and put away the topic from the the get go because it does not apply in THIS case and could not apply due to the nature of how Ms Palfreys business worked. More over, if you were to read all of my posts, rather than quote just one, you would see that my argument is not hinged on this, but I state in several places in one form or another that prostitution is “wrong because of the consequences to society” and that such consequences outweigh others from other societal ills. Once again your fine toothed logic comb seems to have missed this point.