Here’s the first in what promises to be a long line of casualties from the Whore War: Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias resigned "abruptly" last Friday after confessing that he patronized Pamela Martin and Associates, currently Washington DC’s most notorious escort service. "Abrupt" is certainly the word for it. Randy Randall skedaddled away from the scandal and back to private life in a few hours flat, barely taking the time to assert "that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex." Call me cynical, but that seems a fine distinction for a pooh-bah in deep doo-doo.
Plus, we’ve heard it before. Next Randy will be telling us he didn’t inhale, either. The Deputy Secretary may be a pro at spending our taxes on overpriced drugs for Africans, but he isn’t much of an original thinker. Then again, perhaps his wife harbors presidential ambitions.
Randy’s a dandy bureaucrat in more ways than hackneyed thought. For example, he doesn’t blush at overpaying. Seems he was as profligate with his own money at the escort service as he was with our taxes. Providing Pamela Martin charged him the usual rate, Randy paid $275 for 90 minutes of "massages, not sex." Yo, Randy, you got physical therapists in DC? They charge less, and their ministrations don’t land you on the front pages.
But Randy doubtless had money to burn. Deputy Secretaries rake in about $150,000 of our taxes annually — before perks like limousine service and gourmet meals. And what did Randy do for this princely sum besides ordering "massages, not sex"? He "over[saw] all foreign assistance activities of the U.S. Government," as Wikipedia euphemizes it, and the Constitution be damned. He also aided and abetted his boss, Condoleezza Rice, in a scheme dubbed "transformational diplomacy." Condi tripped over her jargon when "defining" this poppycock last year: "To work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people — and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. Transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership, not paternalism" — Pause here for a deep breath. Now, back to the muck — "in doing things with other people, not for them." Randy took that one to heart, eh? "We seek to use America’s diplomatic power to help foreign citizens to better their own lives, and to build their own nations, and to transform their own futures." Condi’s tiresome and repeated emphasis is intended to distract us from the paternalism writhing under all that partnership. "Now, to advance transformational diplomacy all around the world," — yep, that was a shriek you just heard from victims around the globe — "we in the State Department must rise to answer a new historic calling…" Blah, blah, blah… "…it is urgent work that cannot be deferred." Oh, right. That’s why you have to rob folks via the IRS to fund it, Condi. Meanwhile, those of us out here performing non-urgent work rely on customers who value our product enough to pay for it.
That megalomania, the idea that the fraud these bozos perpetrate is so "urgent" no one willingly foots the bill, permeates the bureau where Randy pushed paper: "In a memo yesterday to the USAID staff, James R. Kunder, acting deputy USAID administrator, called [Randy’s] resignation u2018shocking news’ and urged workers not to be u2018distracted from our developmental and emergency work.’" Au contraire, I’ll bet there are whole countries overseas who would love for these charlatans to be "distracted."
Frankly, while Randy’s contempt for the Constitution and his leeching off our taxes disturb me deeply, I couldn’t care less what he did with the ladies he hired. I bet you don’t, either. One more overblown politician’s hijinks are tawdry at best and boring, too. Besides, whatever sins Randy committed are between him and his Maker.
I only wish Randy and his cohorts felt the same towards us. Instead, they care about our lives. A lot. They want to know who we are, what we earn and how, what we buy, how many children we have, where we send them to school, what we ingest, whether we buckle up, how we build our homes, whom we hire, whom we fire, what we say in our phone calls and emails, the colors and disabilities of people to whom we rent space, where we are at any given moment, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Worse, they think they should advise us in these matters, that we should obey, and that they can fine, imprison, or kill us when we don’t. What unspeakable arrogance! Here are creeps so degenerate and hypocritical they leave us gasping, yet they presume to tell us how to live. Let them heed words spoken almost 2000 years ago by the Man Leviathan most hated: "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s…"
With any luck, more politicians and bureaucrats will skitter after Randy these next weeks as the media reveals their dealings with Pamela Martin and Associates. Meanwhile, pundits will wring their hands at this destruction of our faith in Leviathan.
Heck, it only confirms mine.
