Yet Another Big Scandal Brewing

From the Washington Post:

Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view. A one-time law student, Palfrey ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges. * * *

Randall Tobias was the deputy secretary of state who resigned over this. He immediately invoked Rev. Ted Haggard's "It Was Only A Massage" Defense:

On Friday, Randall L. Tobias resigned as deputy secretary of state one day after confirming to Brian Ross of ABC that he had patronized the Pamela Martin firm. Speaking yesterday on "Good Morning America," Ross said Tobias told him Tobias's number was on Palfrey's phone records because he had called "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." There had been "no sex," Ross quoted Tobias as saying, and that recently he has used another service, "with Central American gals," for massages.

Tobias, who is 65 and married, was director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. He previously held a top job in the Bush administration overseeing AIDS relief, in which he promoted abstinence and a policy requiring grant recipients to swear they oppose prostitution.

More revelations are apparently on their way with regard to the "10,000 to 15,000 phone numbers" on Palfrey's list: "Ross said the list includes the names of some 'very prominent people,' as well as a number of women with 'important and serious jobs' who had worked as escorts for the firm."

Unlike all of the other recent scandals, however, this one will probably not be limited to Republicans. As Josh Marshall notes:

Some people are downright giddy that the Bush Administration is about to be ensnared in another scandal. But I would remind them that nothing is more bipartisan than sexual indiscretion.