The Hawk and the Hooker

I usually wouldn't write twice in one day, but my ode to open sources pales to the color of milk beside the story I just dug up on DC gossip-blog Wonkette. I did some online sleuthing of my own, and corroborated Wonkette's story (by corroborated I mean, dug up loosely supporting facts). For those who don't regularly type "prostitute" into the Google News box, a quick summary of the story. About a month ago, DC police charged a California woman with racketeering and money-laundering. She would have been just another middle-aged woman implicated in massive fraud, but when the police raided her home, they found that she was also an entrepreneur. Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran the most profitable prostitution ring in the DC Metro area. Over the course of a few decades, her 130 girls serviced over 15,000 power brokers in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area (for the mathematically-minded, 15,000 divided by 130 is 115. Enough said.) Palfrey made nearly $3 million.

But the plot thickens. She recently decided to give her entire client list to ABC News, and today they outed senior policy associate Harlan Ullman as a regular customer. Ullman, for those who don't regularly type "Neocon" into the Google News box, came up with the "Shock and Awe" strategy towards military combat. Apparently, shock and awe "calls for a massive attack of precision air power that psychologically destroys an enemy's will to fight as much as it destroys the physical ability to fight." I'm sure I'm not the only one surprised that this guy had trouble meeting women. It's unclear which warhawk sex scandal came first: Ullman or Wolfowitz (a married man who allegedly paid his Arab mistress $193,590 to "work for the World Bank." As many sources have said, this is more money than Condi makes, but for now the Secretary of State plans to continue in her current line of work - servicing George Bush for free).

Although Republicans have never been in favor of free love, I didn't realize they were so enthusiastic about paying for it. More importantly, even I'm surprised by Palfrey's discretion - in an age where a girl can drunkenly flash the bartender on her 21st birthday and find the video on Youtube ten years later - Palfrey managed to recruit sex workers through the Internet without anyone knowing.

The fact that she chose to recruit only college-educated women puts a charming Woody Allen spin on the entire tale.