So Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias has resigned after confirming that he was a customer of a Washington, D.C., escort service whose owner has been charged with running a prostitution operation.
Tobias was the Bush administration’s so-called “AIDS czar” and emphasized faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS. But let’s put aside his rank hypocrisy and that of some other social conservatives (Mark Foley was a child predator, Ted Haggard was an antigay homosexual, and so on and so forth) and move on to a more pertinent question.
Should prostitution be legalized?
Tobias’s departure brings to 32 the number of Bush administration officials or nominees who have been convicted, copped pleas, indicted or otherwise brought down by scandal. Here is a somewhat outdated list. It does not include Tobias or Robert E. Coughlin II, who was deputy chief of staff of the embattled Justice Department’s criminal division until he was tied to convicted super lobbyist Jack Abramoff whom, um, Coughlin’s colleagues are investigating.