Saturday, April 28, 2007

The jokes write themselves...

...except that I'm not laughing.

Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution "loyalty oath."

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it "was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus." But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security Presidential Directive saying prostitution "and related activities" were "inherently harmful and dehumanizing."

12 comments:

Gonzo said...

He should go and he went. I love this line from a commentator:

The bottom line is that Democrat voters don't mind graft (Jefferson) or sodomy (Frank) but Republican voters do. Saying "Democrat politicians do it, too!" is no excuse.

They get rid of their dead. The Dems zombify them.

Garrett said...

Graft is a crime.

Homosexuality isn't.

SeattleSusieQ said...

Sodomy? This is a private act between adults. You, the self-proclaimed libertarian, don't agree with that?

I like the fact that this list - if accurate, and only if accurate as to what they were doing - SHOULD come out, no matter who is on it. The women are being charged with prostitution, so why should their customers get away with it?

Gonzo said...

You're right, as a libertarian I don't care what people do privately...


Frank's dalliances, though, involved minors. That I care about...but I guess Dems don't.

Garrett said...

I care, but since it was apparently consensual, I'm not as outraged as I was about Foley trying to stumble drunk into the pages' dorm.

Heck, look at Letourneau/Fualaau - when she was released from prison and he was 21, he petitioned the court to remove the no-contact order so that they could marry.

Gonzo said...

Garrett, why are you playing this tit-for-tat game? The fact of the matter is that when the GOP finds a bad apple in their midst, like Foley or this guy, he's thrown out post-haste.

When the Dems find a bad guy, they ignore it or make excuses for them.

So, we have representing Dems in Congress:

A corrupt guy who escaped prosecution by the skin of his teeth (Murtha)
A corrupt and impeached Federal judge (Hastings)
Some guy with $100,000 in his fucking freezer (Jefferson)
A damn Wizard of the KKK (Byrd).

I could go on, but why bother?

Gonzo said...

Oh, and just for reference, there is NO SUCH THING as consensual sex with a minor.

That's pathetic AND insulting.

Garrett said...

"Some guy with $100,000 in his fucking freezer (Jefferson)"

Nice try.

linky

I can't believe that:

a) he was re-elected in November
b) the sheriff who helped block the Connector out of NOLA worked to defeat his opponent. Bastard.

I don't expect it will be much longer before Jefferson is convicted and we can finally boot him out of the House...

Garrett said...

I think there _can_ be consensual sex with a minor, but it really depends on the minor. It's much safer to just ban it outright than get into arguments about whether this particular minor was capable of consenting.

Heck, some _adults_ probably shouldn't be let out of the house unsupervised when it comes to sex. :-)

Gonzo said...

OK, so what you are saying is that it's OK to keep Jefferson until the results of the investigation are known yet were unwilling to extend that same courtesy to Foley?

Garrett said...

Um, no. Foley resigned. Jefferson should have. All the leadership could do was strip him of his committee assignments, which was done. The people of his district sent him back to Washington, for some odd reason...

Gonzo said...

Yeah, they did re-elect him and, technically, he can remain until convicted of something. I guess that's not unusual insofar as there are plenty of folks serving in Congress who did things that ethics would dictate they resign but they haven't. Just the way it is, I suppose. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and while that's the way it should be for the common citizen, you would like to think that our representatives in DC would hold themselves to a higher standard.

As to our earlier discussion on minors, I just remembered that each state has something called the "age of consent". At that age, someone is legally considered free to consent to ... whatever. In the Frank case, I dunno what the age was in Mass.