Madam Maniacs Left Wanting More
As I noted last week, ABC's Brian Ross had said that the madam's list included people at the "Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers." Some of us – you know who you are – began salivating at the prospect of high-profile names emerging as her clients.
ABC did not provide them, however, having deemed most of the clients "not well enough known to be 'newsworthy,'" according to the Independent. They were, in fact, mostly "dull." (The biggest name emerged early: Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias.) On Brian Ross' blog, Ross, Justin Rood and Lisa Schwartz explained that "many of the identities proved difficult to match." They continued:
For example, calls to hotels frustrated the effort. Many men arranged "appointments" with [Madam Deborah Jeane] Palfrey from a hotel room telephone, which made those clients nearly impossible to identify from the phone records.And then there were the false leads: The man who claimed to work at the White House but didn't, the "head of a recognized educational institution" whose phone number was the same as one of the escorts except for the area code.Complicating matters further, Palfrey sometimes used the phone for personal calls -- to talk with friends and family as well as to make personal travel arrangements and for other purposes.
It now appears that ABC News initially thought it had more than it did. While the network ultimately seems to have acted responsibly by showing restraint, some viewers were less than pleased with the end product. The first commenter on the post excerpted above pretty much sums up the tenor of the reaction.
"SO WHERE ARE THE NAMES, BRIAN ROSS???," writes Glenda Scott. "THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE BEEN PROMISING. WHERE'S THE BEEF, MISTER????????????"