Of "Central American gals," professors, legal secretaries, and military officers
Speaking of the Randall Tobias/Deborah Palfrey dust up, Nico at ThinkProgress brings up a point that I think might not be getting enough attention. Nico posts the transcript of an upcoming 20/20 piece on Palfrey's extensive phone records. ABC reporter Brian Ross says (with my emphasis added)
ROSS: There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers, and there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list, and as well, the women who work for the service, David, include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.
While everyone is slavering to find out who among Washington, D.C.'s high and mighty are among Palfrey's thousands of names and tens of thousands of phone numbers, I'd rather hear more about her employees. No, not their identities but their working conditions: how were they recruited, how were they screened and hired? How were the were managed, how they were scheduled? How easy it was for them to leave Palfrey's service when they wanted to?
We have such intense opinions about prostitution, for and/or against. We know that it should be crushed, or that it should be legalized, or tolerated, or that it should be shunned, or that it should be ignored. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know so much about prostitution, yet we know scarcely anything at all.
Who, in the aggregate, were these 132 women? (The story would have even more buzz if Palfrey had also employed men) Who were these professors, these legal secretaries, these scientists, these military officers, these Thai and Central American "gals" who worked for a woman in a $480,000 home in Escondido, CA -- a continent away -- over the last thirteen years?
I don't know.
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