Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Schadenfreude Alert

Randall Tobias, deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, resigned last week after his name surfaced as a patron of the services of D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Of course he says he only got a "massage," and indeed Palfrey's whole defense is that she ran a legal service and knows nothing about her employees having sex with any clients.

This would be only moderately amusing if Tobias hadn't been the Bush Administration's chief advocate for "abstinence only" sex education abroad. He said this in March 2005:

"the heart of our prevention programs is what's known as ABC: abstinence, be faithful, and the correct and consistent use of condoms when appropriate. . . . [It's] not 'ABC: Take your pick.' It's abstinence really focused heavily on young people and getting them to understand that the best way to keep from getting infected is to be abstinent and not engage in sexual activity until they are old enough and mature enough and get into a committed relationship, such as a marriage. B is being faithful within that committed relationship."

I'm usually not that into schadenfreude, but sometimes it's hard to resist.

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