Once again a sordid story is unfolding in our capital involving people in power and their sexual foibles. Fortunately, this one is playing under the radar and has not (and hopefully, will not) assumed the proportions of an Anna Nicole Smith or American Idol size saga. What after all, is new about the powerful seeking extra-constitutional, extralegal or extramarital privileges for themselves? So far all we know is that the D.C. Madam who claims to have served the high and mighty with her stable of sophisticated "escorts" has threatened to expose the contents of her rather hefty "little black book." Thankfully, the reaction to her lurid threat has been tepid at best although there has already been one high level casualty from the fun-filled frolic that the Madam provided.
Randall Tobias, Deputy Secretary of State and Bush's AIDS czar has resigned. He claims to have received only $300 dollar massages and no sexual contact with the "gals." Who cares, you say? Well hundreds of thousands of current and potential AIDS victims around the world do. Not about what Tobias did in his own time with his own money but what he expected them to do in return for our money. George Bush's World AIDS prevention and emergency plan is among this administration's few generous and compassionate enterprises. But like everything else the right wingers do, even good causes geared towards health and human services are inextricably tied to their own narrow sense of morality. Just as they have in the past tried to make teen pregnancy hostage to abstinence only education and abortion out of bounds in family planning services to poor countries, Bush's AIDS funding too has been linked to victims living by the moral standards of their Christian donors.
I completely and wholeheartedly agree that "health & disease conditions" like untimely pregnancies, AIDS and STDs, must have sane, persuasive and scientific "sex and social education" as part of the prevention program along with pharmaceutical cures and palliatives. But education takes time - cultural mindsets do not change overnight. Also poverty often is the biggest impediment to morality. Overwhelming number of women in poor countries getting mired in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are not in a position to say "no" to their husbands and sexual partners or even to persuade them to exercise care and caution. To withhold or delay medical aid to these afflicted women based on our own prosperous morality is not just unreasonable but cruel. Especially, when the powerful donors themselves often cannot (and do not) live by those standards. As we have seen time and again, another mighty has fallen because the hiccup of hypocrisy scared the high horse he was riding.
Ellen Goodman has the details:
The deputy secretary of state resigned last Friday after admitting he was a client of the service described on the Web as "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services." The 65-year-old married man did not admit to having sex with those women but said he had the $300-a-visit "gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." It was, he said, like calling for pizza.
Well, Mr. Tobias was not just your everyday CEO-turned-bureaucrat. This is one time that "private life" and "public record" are as tightly wedded as a pizza and its toppings. As the first global AIDS czar, Mr. Tobias oversaw American public policy for foreign private lives. He was in charge of doling out sexual morality with the money.
First a caveat. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is one of the good things that has come from this administration. Some $15 billion has been targeted for treatment and HIV prevention in the epidemic's hot spots. But from the get-go, it's been hampered by the same moral-first, faith-based tenets that are woven through our domestic policy.
Any country that wants money from George Bush's America has to follow the ABCs of our policy prescription: A for abstinence, B for be faithful, and C for condoms only if you belong to a high-risk group that flunks A and B. So far, a full third of the prevention money, more than $100 million, has been spent for abstinence-until-marriage programs.
Mr. Tobias was often praised as a good manager. If he was not an ideologue, he sure played one on TV and in congressional hearings. When he was finally caught on the wrong list, it wasn't the ABCs that made him resign. It was the H for hypocrisy.
I had a different response to this story. Sordid though it is, I am rooting for the DC Madam and want the news to becomes huge. I was hoping that the phone list she revealed would throw up more names but 20/20 on ABC didn't oblige. As you know, the DC Madam was first threatened with a sting operation / prison for illegally running a high-end prostitution ring. She was super smart, turning around and saying -- wow, all you powerful men got the goods and I get punished for the delivery! Great, ABC Channel, I'll reveal their names, and you can call around and verify that these men didn't actually have sex with my girls, who all signed contracts to that effect. This causes a flurry of phone calls and lo and behold, the DC Madam is free to go! That's her calculation at any rate and it seems to be working. It's a self-defense strategy that is impossible to beat.
Posted by: Shunya | May 07, 2007 at 01:16 AM
I haven't paid much attention to this case. Didn't see the 20/20 broadcast. What did "Madam" reveal there? If she is being pursued for being a "comfort woman" to the high and mighty, she shouldn't go to jail unless her "customers" do too. If the sting is for some other unlawful behavior, she shouldn't get off by sexual blackmail.
My problem is not that I don't want the hypocrites to be exposed, shamed and thrown out of positions of power. But unless the Madam has some really big fish (senators, congressmen, presidential candidates, cabinet secretaries, CIA and FBI chiefs) on her hook, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want a 24/7 spectacle on cable TV involving mid-level bureaucrats and government employees and endless vigils outside their homes, interviews with their classmates and mother in law. There are enough things to be outraged about other than the sexual peccadilloes of inconsequential D.C. powerbrokers.
BTW, can you answer my question about Sanskrit and the language of artificial intelligence that I asked you in my email? You can email me if you wish.
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | May 07, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Ruchira, I'm with you when it comes to—yawn—"inconsequential D.C. powerbrokers." But it's just not fair to invoke cursorily in public this question about Sanskrit and AI and not spill the details!
Posted by: Dean C. Rowan | May 07, 2007 at 01:27 PM
Okay Dean. I will send you the Sanskrit- AI link via email. Shunya is a computer expert and the topic is an old one - you will be surprised. Just didn't think others would be interested in what I termed as "flogging a dead horse."
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | May 07, 2007 at 02:03 PM
I'm of course hoping that her list will produce consequential names of men whose "public roles or positions conflict with hiring escorts", as with Tobias. I don't watch TV but here is a decent survey article on the case, if you're still interested. Because sex is so tied up with "sin" in the US (compared to, say, W. Europe), this is perhaps more of a comic spectacle to me than it should be. And what better place to show the old nexus between power and sex than DC? This saga might even help humanize our politicians.
Btw, I don't think of myself as a computer expert (my mother does though :). But I sure don't shy away from expressing opinions.
Posted by: Shunya | May 07, 2007 at 10:48 PM
Shunya: I agree with your mother!
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | May 07, 2007 at 11:25 PM