I Don't Care about "D.C. Madam"

Randall Tobias, director of U.S. foreign assistance and administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development resigned Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation over whether or not “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, was actually a prostitution ring. So far, there has been no evidence that the more than 130 women working for her actually performed sexual services. Tobias insists that he only received massages from the women and nothing else. Friday evening, the State Department put out a statement announcing that Tobias is “returning to private life for personal reasons.”

What is most disappointing to me is not the fact that Tobias used a dubious call-girl ring for massages, but that CNN.com’s top story on the “Politics” page is a story completely unrelated to any legislation, foreign policy, or agency rulemaking that affects the lives of the citizenry. Once again, reporters are focusing on personalities and spectacles instead of performing the role assigned to them: an “intermediary” institution that connects the citizens to government. If the media reported on things more pertinent to what Patterson calls in Out of Order the citizen’s “governing schema,” CNN’s John King and Brianna Keilar would have devoted that space to the irrelevant private affairs of a literally unknown state official.