Grand Old Police Blotter: No Happy Ending Edition

Republican fatcat Randall Tobias is resigning from his position as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator (DUFAUSIDA) to spend more time with his hookers.

Contacted last night at his home in the District, Tobias, a former chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., declined to discuss the circumstances of his resignation, saying he would "stick with the statement the State Department released today."

According to ABC News, Tobias said he contacted the escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage" and that there had been "no sex" involved.

In a memo yesterday to the USAID staff, James R. Kunder, acting deputy USAID administrator, called the resignation "shocking news" and urged workers not to be "distracted from our developmental and emergency work."

Tobias reportedly paid $275 for 90 minute massage, hold the Dick Morris. Price seems a little stiff to me.

So how did Randy Randy come to become the DUFAUSIDA?

He and Lilly have been major donors to the Republican Party. He gave $4,000 to Bush from 1999 to 2001, and he and his wife donated a total of $37,000 to the GOP and its state elections committee during that period. Lilly, meanwhile, gave another $23,000 to Bush's campaign in 2000 and spent $234,000 on direct mail to its stockholders on Bush's behalf, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

But, seriously, it's a tragedy when a dedicated public servant has to resign for failings unrelated to her or his duties.

President Bush nominated him in July 2003 to lead a $15 billion program to fight AIDS worldwide.

At the time, some AIDS experts said Mr. Tobias did not have much experience with AIDS or Africa.

Or not.

Perhaps Mr. Tobias was just modeling the Bush Administration's theories of faith-based disease prevention for the benefit of the Dark Continent:

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias on Thursday in Berlin defended the use of prevention programs that emphasize sexual abstinence in African and Caribbean countries that are set to receive assistance through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Agence France-Presse reports (Agence France-Presse, 4/22). The law (HR 1298) authorizing PEPFAR endorses the "ABC" HIV prevention model -- abstinence, be faithful, use condoms -- which has had success in lowering HIV prevalence rates in Uganda. The measure also specifies that one-third of the bill's HIV/AIDS prevention funding should be used for abstinence and monogamy programs (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/28/03). Tobias, who was in Berlin for the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS' 2004 Awards for Business Excellence, said that promoting abstinence and monogamy are "far more effective" than distributing condoms for preventing the spread of HIV, according to Agence France-Presse. "Statistics show that condoms really have not been very effective," Tobias said, adding, "It's been the principal prevention device for the last 20 years, and I think one needs only to look at what's happening with the infection rates in the world to recognize that has not been working." PEPFAR has been criticized by AIDS advocates for placing "false hopes" on abstinence and monogamy prevention programs, according to Agence France-Presse.

...

Tobias said, "What the Ugandans have proven is that if you can get young people -- and the results show that you can -- to understand how AIDS is spread and to delay the age at which they become sexually active, and then if you can get people who are sexually active to reduce hopefully to one the number of partners, they have proven to be the two most effective approaches to prevention." Tobias added, "The message to young people in the schools is not either 'Be abstinent or here are condoms, take your pick.' It is a message of 'Be abstinent.' Delaying sexual activity is a means of eliminating the risk of infection."...

So if Randy manfully resisted the advances of those predatory females of loose virtue, as he claims, shouldn't the Administration be promoting him rather than accepting his resignation?