Bush, Cheney, sex and scandal

You probably already know by now that rumor connects Dick Cheney with the "DC Madam" scandal. As near as I can tell, all of these reports stem from Wayne Madsen.

Madsen -- let us put this politely -- has a problematical reputation. He is, for example, the only source for the tabloid rumor that Laura wants a divorce and has moved out of the White House. He is right maybe half the time, but deciding which half is which requires more talent than I possess.

Does anyone know of any other source for the Cheney tale?

On another front (so to speak): I am aware that Leola McConnell (the BDSM diva who claims to have witnessed a liaison between Dubya and Victor Ashe) was featured in the Globe tabloid, although I've not yet read the story. I have tried to get her to speak to me, but so far, no luck...

While researching the Cheney thing, I stumbled across a columnist who poses an interesting question:

But what’s more interesting than the names of the big spenders are the women who worked for Palfrey, the $300-an-hour club. I’ve never paid for sex (only because I didn’t know where to find it when I was 15), but in the marketplace, I assume $300 gets you the Ferrari, or at least the Corvette. But the questions remain: What does a $300-an-hour prostitute look like? What do you get for the money? Is there a charge by the minute?

Your Friend and Humble Narrator may be a rotter and a cad, but he is also a man of the world. So allow me to attempt an answer.

I used to know a wonderful lady who had, not many years previous, made a tidy pile as an upscale escort. We are not talking $300 a visit: We are talking $3000. The fellow quoted above will probably presume that that kind of money gets you not a Corvette, not a Ferrari, but a faster-than-light spaceship hand-crafted by leprechauns.

(I met her after she had embarked on a new career as a writer. She's brilliant.)

She was and is very pretty, but -- you may be surprised to learn -- the business, on that level, is not about "pretty." It's about attitude. She was advised to convey the impression that she just might decide to say "no" and walk right out of the room at any moment.

Certain men pay an awful lot of money for the possibility of that "no."

The trade, even at its most lucrative, has no glamor. She became convinced that the high-powered individuals she saw (she did not name any names and I did not press) were possessed by demons. Literally. She was so persuasive that I could not bring myself to disbelieve her -- and I'm not the kind of guy who buys into tales about demons.

Most of the girls she worked with died young.

(I miss her. She's a lovely lady -- "lovely" in the highest sense of the word -- who had the misfortune to encounter me at a horrible time in my life. I will repay her one day for the help she gave me.)

Don't get me wrong: There are some exquisite-looking $300 escorts out there. Even so, I suspect a Haliburton CEO would operate somewhere above and beyond the $300 realm. Most people don't even know that there are realms beyond that.

A.K. -- you may fill out the rest of the name; I've used it often in previous posts -- has been known to connect powerful and wealthy men with women who inhabit an amorphous, unnamed region between "escort" and "mistress." A relationship of this sort lasts days or weeks or even months, not hours. I've talked to one of these women. The participants convince themselves that sex on this level really is not prostitution. Perhaps it isn't, and perhaps it is; I'll leave that question to the philosophers.

Palfrey's ladies may well have been used for entrapment purposes. Many foreign VIPs (diplomats, spooks, department heads, military officers, etc) come to DC and NY expecting entertainment. Hidden cameras have been known to play a role in such scenarios.

In the past, I've discussed the case of Xaviera Hollander, who had a camera placed in her bedroom while she entertained Arab dignitaries -- who did not know that she is Jewish. Explains a lot of history, eh?