It's that moral leadership thing again.
The head of the Agency for International Development, Randall Tobias (equivalent rank to deputy secretary of state), abruptly resigned on Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation of a suspected Washington prostitution ring. He submitted his resignation a day after he was interviewed by ABC News for an upcoming program about the alleged call-girl service.
The so-called D.C. Madam, Deborah Palfrey, has pleaded not guilty to operating a call-girl service in Washington and has threatened to sell her client list to raise money for her defense. She claims to have 46 pounds of phone records involving clients. A federal judge had ordered her not to release the records, but, OOPS, she had already given them to ABC before the order took effect.
Mr. Tobias is actually the second name that has surfaced thus far in this scandal. She had previously identified an adviser to the Pentagon as one of the regular customers of her service, known for his "shock and awe" combat theories.
Mr. Tobias has confirmed that he was a customer of an escort service. On her Web site, Ms. Palfrey asserted that her service functioned as a "high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior." Mr. Tobias reportedly told ABC that he used the service for massages, not sex. Right. Tell it to your wife (and good luck with that).
Mr. Tobias is a (married) 65-year-old former chair and chief executive of Eli Lilly & Company (pharmaceutical) and of AT & T International. He served as chair of the Board of Duke University from 1997 to 2000. He was also a major donor to various Republican campaigns.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. Just the kind of story I thought a liberal would find interesting
joe m at 4:39PM on Apr 28th 2007
2. I thought the Republicans occupied the moral high ground? Listen...we knew that all this hanky-panky has always been going on...what is disengenuous is the hypocrisy flying left and right. No one approves of, or condones this behavior, but to spend 45 million dollars in taxpayer money, and the same time Chandra Levy (remember her?) disappears, and is later found dead, but was also having a fling with Gary Condit...the poster boy for "American Family Values."
Firstsai at 5:18PM on Apr 28th 2007
3. My guess is that the list isn't exclusively republican.
Steve Bonomo at 12:31AM on Apr 29th 2007
4. Hey, politicians have been screwing us for years, now they paying for it with their earnings that came from taxpayers. Nothing new here
dan mccourt at 4:39AM on Apr 30th 2007
5. Hmmm....Republicans getting laid implies that they are participating in activities that require young women to need contraceptive and abortion. I guess that's why America has such an unwillingness to admit the truth. Maybe the best thing to ever happen to the democrats is for the republicans to actually eliminate reproductive freedoms for women.
kellamd at 4:36AM on May 1st 2007