I can’t motivate myself to be interested enough in the Secret Service prostitute scandal to figure out if I should care or not. What’s the deal with it? It’s on so many of the internets the last week or so.
Reader Interactions
57Comments
Comments are closed.
salacious crumb
well sex sells, and this time it is us high minded Americans getting caught with our pants down in the act of using women as objects, an activity that we usually associate and reprimands Asians and Arabs with the most. We have used the subjugation of women as an excuse to start war and condemn nations, so it doesnt looked good when the esteemed of the esteemed get caught doing the same thing.
nations are laughing at us, as always..
Comrade Dread
Way I hears it, a few off-duty military guys and some of the advanced secret service officers decided to go out and enjoy the town, hit a strip club, got hammered and hired some ladies of the evening, then didn’t quite pay them all.
The local cops got involved and since the media loves them some sex scandals and moral outrage (poverty, lack of health care, and 2 wars going on, phppt… whatever), they jumped on top of the story and started humping it to death.
Since then, we’ve moved through the “This is all the fault of the gays” phase into the “This is good news for John Mc-, er, Mitt Romney.”
Mark S.
There’s apparently also a scandal in the State Dept that I also don’t know much about.
dmsilev
As far as I can tell, the big issue is that the Secret Service men tried to get a two-for-one deal, not realizing that the Groupon had already expired.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
My local AM News station (WBZ) spent a good 5 minutes on this scandal during morning drive time, so the wingers are clearly going to run with it. Obama may be the cleanest guy to sit in the White House since Calvin Coolidge, but what’s a little guilt-by-association between blood enemies?
BTW, I don’t seem to recall nearly so much poutrage in the MSM when a similar (arguably worse) scandal involving actual officials happened on Bush’s watch.
Color me shocked.
pragmatism
it’s an early centrism day gift to the village. don’t worry, issa is all over it.
Gin & Tonic
Secret Service agents aren’t paid enough, apparently, because they tried to get one of the ladies to give them a two-for-one, which she didn’t agree to. I bet the rest of the soon-to-be-former agents are wishing those guys had ponied up the extra $50 she wanted, and everybody would have gone home happy and employed.
Lee
Yeah a bunch of military guys decided to get some smokin’ hot prostitutes (so I’ve been told) while deployed in a foreign country
In more news, water is still wet.
For no apparent reason: USMC 84-90 :)
Martin
Well, Secret Service guys fucked up bad. The whole point of the agency is that they can’t be leveraged. I was glad to see they lost their security clearance within hours.
For anyone with a security clearance, there is no ‘that’s part of their private life’. This is precisely where espionage works best – get something on a person with access, then apply leverage, get more, lever more, and then you can do damage. Secret Service really has to get this perfect all the time. That’s true for much of the military as well, but not all, so I don’t have as strong of an opinion on that side of it, but Obama and Napolitano should be running riot through the Secret Service over this.
4tehlulz
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Dude, that’s fucking high brow compared to the shitstain that is Cincinnati AM radio.
Mitt Romney and his racist friend. Can my liver hold up until November?
D0n Camillo
Apparently these Secret Service agents weren’t used to ripping off prostitutes in a place where the prostitute can go to the cops. Legalized prostitution actually gives prostitutes legal recourse — whocoodanoed?
JCT
@dmsilev: Where should your internets be mailed to?
Raven
@Lee: No shit, dumb motherfuckers, it ain’t even illegal. All they had to do was have their shit moderately together.
Raven
Dick Clark died.
Amir Khalid
Damned if I know what the big deal is. While it does look bad for the personnel directly involved — carousing with loose women in quarters after curfew! Trying to weasel out of paying a hooker! The shame of it! — there’s no hint of anything that reaches higher than them. We’ve seen feeble attempts by the right to make this a sign of systemic failure in the Obama administration, but no one seems to be buying it. If you want to ignore it, I guess you won’t really be missing anything.
By the way, Torn and Frayed is a beautiful song.
ReflectedSky
Are you guys not horrified because you think Obama will be blamed, or because you think prostitution should be legal, or just that the sexual exploitation of women is no big deal?
They bragged that they were his security detail in the bordello/club. They compromised his security in that instant. This whole thing is an example of how the military-industrial complex, with its oceans of untracked money and untouchable status vis-a-vis criticism, is corrupt and incompetent. They blame Obama for all sorts of things that aren’t his fault. This shouldn’t be downplayed out of fear they’ll blame him for this, too.
The Groupon joke is a nice touch, but from what I read, two of the agents wanted an MMF threesome, and tried to pay her for servicing only one guy, I guess on the theory that her vagina was kind of like a cab ride. I find it deeply amusing that nobody is pointing out the interesting sexual dynamics of both those guys bedding her at once. I’m guessing both men are Republicans. I could be wrong, of course. Perhaps they’re progressive, LGBT-friendly dudes who voted for Obama in 08. But then you’d think they’d care enough to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT about working for him, even if they don’t believe in paying women fairly for their sex work.
Bob2
@4tehlulz:
Too bad you don’t have Matt Drudge to throw that out into the MSM.
schrodinger's cat
I have no idea what this is about, but apparently Sullivan has a sad because of this.
gene108
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
What can the MSM do, if Fox News is “breaking” a story and covering it wall-to-wall on their channel? Ignore it, because there are more important issues?
Not likely my friend, because if Fox News is “scooping” the MSM by pushing out a news story, you know the MSM doesn’t want to be left behind.
Sort of the like the $800G’s the GSA spent in Vegas. Yeah, it’s a lot of money and more than should’ve been spent on a team building meeting, but if we consider the fact raising $4.7 billion in taxes, i.e. around 5,875 times as much money as the GSA spent, in one year isn’t worth doing because it’d only fund the government for about 1/2 day, your basically looking at 7.35 seconds of money the government consumes that the GSA went through in Vegas.
On the grand scheme of things these aren’t a big deal.
It’s just an attempt by the Republicans to get that good-old-timey-1990’s feel back to the news cycle, when they were able gin up enough “controversy” that they actually got to impeach a President.
Brachiator
Ass always, Darrel Issa is checking to see if he can use this scandal as impeachment bait.
@salacious crumb:
I doubt it. But I don’t care.
I do care about potential problems with the Secret Service, especially if it impacts the presidential protection detail in any way.
By the way, none of the agents involved were part of the main presidential protection detail, but this kind of shit adds to the general complexity of presidential travel.
Comrade Dread
@ReflectedSky: Choice two.
Because legality allows for women to have legal recourse in these types of situations which makes exploitation less likely.
Now, I am upset that the Secret Service allowed itself to be potentially compromised, which is a really bad idea given the level of vitriol currently fomenting in certain circles against their boss.
But as long as a thorough investigation is done, the compromised agents are removed from duty and fired, I’m not going to hop on the outrage wagon this time because the system in place seems to be working.
Mnemosyne
@ReflectedSky:
Speaking for myself, I’m not horrified because prostitution should be legal (though people who try to claim it’s a “victimless crime” haven’t seen the statistics about how many sex workers were sexually and/or physically abused as children — IIRC, it’s upwards of 80 percent).
Plus I find it fucking hilarious that apparently the SS idiots didn’t realize that they could get in legal trouble for not paying their bill. It’s like saying, “What, I was supposed to pay for that restaurant meal? I thought the server was bringing me food out of the kindness of his heart!”
dedc79
The world’s oldest profession also happens to be a media obsession. Bringing politics/Obama into it (even though it has little if anything to do with Obama in reality) is kind of a perfect storm from a CNN/Politico standpoint.
Gin & Tonic
Well, turns out there’s a good and fairly comprehensive story in the NYT, which interviewed the woman who raised a stink, and it appears to have been simply an argument about price. Nothing about a threesome, just that at night she reportedly told the guy it would be $800, figuring him for a well-off businessman, and in the morning when she was leaving and wanted payment he offered her $30. The bid/asked disparity led to all the commotion, and brought in the cops.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Pretty much all of “Exile” is great. The stuff that isn’t great is mostly awesome.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Martin:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the military personnel involved also had TS/SCI/WTF-ever clearances-they might have been involved with all sorts of fancy pants communication type stuff.
trollhattan
I know an agent and hope he’s not completely sick of answering questions about this before the next time I see him. Pretty sure he’ll have an interesting take.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sully seems to have regressed back to his natural Tory quantum state over vacation. The tell is when he calls the Buffet Rule “silly”, with no real refutation or discussion. The Simpson-Bowles “Starve Granny” Plan is the one true Serious Proposal, after all.
He also apparently interprets Obama’s swinging into campaign mode as “moving to the left”… he’s shocked, shocked I tell you!
Mickey
I think it’s kind of a big deal but nothing that will stick to Obama. I think Republicans are just happy to have a sex scandal where they can use Obama in the same sentence.
Elizabelle
Let me know if David Vitter weighs in on this one.
Otherwise: what Martin said.
Perhaps President Obama will be safer if they clean house. What do you think?
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
RIP. Years ago when I lived in New York in the 1960s he had an apartment on East 57th Street in the same building where a friend of mine lived, and I would see him occasionally in the lobby or the elevator. A very gracious pleasant man.
Roy G.
Why? Because the Latin American leadership wants to discuss legalization of drugs as a way to end the drug war. Can’t be having that discussion, so…. look – hookers!
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@4tehlulz:
No arguments here. That “eating dog” claim is some nasty, ignorant stuff. (Not to mention objectively wrong: Indonesia is a Muslim country, and dogs are ‘unclean’ under Islamic Law. Most devout Muslims wouldn’t even touch a dog, much less eat one).
But in some ways, I find the stealth rightwing spin of ‘mainstream’ WBZ to be more dangerous/insidious in some ways. They’ve been subtly undermining Elizabeth Warren, as well, I’ve noticed.
cat
Its a big deal because these are people with security clearences and they are told not to do crap like this to protect themselves and the secrets of the country they serve.
This is another episode of our elites behaving badly, the question is can we wring this whole “I’m above the rules” out of our culture before its to late.
cat
@Martin:
Absolutely, you don’t wake up one day and decide to bring strangers back to your room. Given it was probably a regular habit it highlights another failure in that it wasn’t reported.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@dedc79:
…most likely due to the similar skillset required.
ericblair
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I’m not sure whether all SS agents have to go through the Yankee White presidential detail glove-and-Vaseline you-stole-a-candy-in-kindergarten-dintya investigation, but they probably did. I’m not a big fan of our clearance process, but this is exactly the kind of personal conduct, foreign contact situation that can lead to blackmail and compromise of classified information. Of course FOX is trying to pin this on Obama, but I’m curious how they’re doing it (besides blackity-black oh look he’s BLACK).
Incidentally, one of the factors in any these situations is who exactly knows about the personal conduct. If lots of people know about it, that’s actually better for you, since you’re supposedly less susceptible to blackmail. The whole frigging country knows about this little stunt, but I don’t think that’s going to help the SS guys in their investigation much.
Origuy
Apparently, Obama talked about eating dog meat in his autobiography, and Wikipedia says it’s popular among Indonesia’s non-Muslim minorities.
The worst thing I’ve heard about the SS scandal (aside from trying to short the prostitute, tacky) is that they brought them back to their hotel rooms. That could have lead to a bug being planted, which could be bad if they were discussing security arrangements in the rooms.
TooManyJens
I think prostitution should be legal for the reason already given upthread: that it gives prostitutes legal recourse if someone tries to hurt or exploit them. I find it pretty repugnant that they tried to get out of paying, as though they were just entitled to use this woman’s body and what she agreed to didn’t really matter.
Of course there are also the security implications that others have mentioned.
Maude
@Raven:
Ah, RIP Mr. Clark.
Levon Helm is dying.
That’s all the cheery news I have at the moment.
Omnes Omnibus
People fucked up. They are being disciplined. I also would think policies and procedures are being updated. That about covers it.
mk3872
Sex Scandal! So the media has been on it like flies to dog poop.
Every story that shows-up on the Secret Service prostitution story, the media puts up a nice big picture of Obama, like this has anything to do with him.
Was there even a Latin America summit last week? Did the media even notice?
Amir Khalid
@Origuy:
The dog-eating didn’t seem a biog deal to me when I read Dreams From My Father. I’m guessing it wasn’t a regular item in the Soetoro family’s meals. Lolo might have mixed his Sunni Islam with some esoteric traditional beliefs; but he was basically a Muslim and dog meat is, strictly speaking, haram. Besides, Anne wouldn’t have been keen on it.
Suffern ACE
I kind of agree with Doghouse Riley on this scandal. There wouldn’t have been any coverage of the summit if it wasn’t for the sex. So at least we can have a 10 second overview of what the summit was about from the TV set before they turn the event over to the man on the ground reporter who’s been tasked with the “Columbian Prostitutes Exposed at 11” story.
Who ever heard of such a thing! Men when away from home looking for prostitutes! Let’s discuss this thing again and again.
Andrey
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: That’s unfair to sex workers.
kc
Well, let’s see, you have a bunch of American law enforcement and military people behaving like arrogant, entitled, violent jackasses in a foreign country, while on a trip accompanying heads of state – yeah, I think you should care.
keestadoll
Well, we’ve learned that Columbian hookers absolutely will NOT be bargained with, and that our great POTUS guards are TOTAL cheapskates. OOOOOOOH! AHHHHHHH! There’s no there There.
Steve in DC
Whoring it up around the world is a time honored tradition. Stuff like that happens constantly in the military. You do have to pay them though, however drunken fiascos at whore houses are fairly common.
Nothing wrong with getting a hooker though.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
To tell the truth, I’m not sure if there’s much there or not.
It looks like a bunch of guys in the Secret Service and military got laid in Colombia. Some of them with escorts, but probably not all of them.
One of agents that slept with an escort promised her a ‘gift’ of $800. When he woke up in the morning, he claimed he only did it ’cause he was drunk, and offered her $30 instead. After arguing, she complained to a cop in the hotel lobby. Cue scandal.
It looks like some of the people caught up in the fracas were simply having innocent sex, while others contracted for services and paid their bill.
The MSNBC story going around about a two-for-one deal appears to be just gossip.
.
JGabriel
@ReflectedSky:
According to this interview with the escort who got short-changed, they did not:
ReflectedSky:
That appears to be an unfounded rumour. The escort’s story never mentions any kind of threesome.
.
RalfW
What’s the deal with it, Doug?
1) It’s a chance to blame Barack Obama
2) It’s a chance to talk about something other than: shitty jobs numbers, shitty legislation, shitty GOP candidate for president, complicated and shitty news about climate change, complicated, shitty and boring news about a host of other things.
So, of course some prostitution and gubmit Johns is hot hot hot.
Should you care? Given the above, what do you think?
Fox and the GOP sure hope you will!
Smiling Mortician
@kc: Violent? Really?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
The professionals at the secret service were being proactive against one of the least known but potentially most lethal weapons developed by the Red Muslim Commie Chinese – transvestite assassins. You need to be very thorough against such a threat. They deserve medals.
Keith G
Secret Service agents patronize prostitutes in Columbia.
So, it appears that the Obama administration is indeed exporting jobs.
mattH
They didn’t pay, you should be damn pissed about that. We pay them good money and they should be good for it.
brantl
Yep, Secret Service agents behaved a little bit like Limpballs (minus trafficking illegally obtained drugs to a latin-american country) and everybody has a shit fest. What a surprise! By the way, was Douche Limpballs ever prosecuted for that?
Don
The Daily says they tried to brush her off without paying her at all. http://dcist.com/2012/04/photo_released_of_the_colombian_esc.php