Blog P.I.

The so-called “DC madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey, died in an apparent suicide yesterday. Apparent to most, that is. As others suspected and even invited, it’s apparently murder to a few conspiracy theorists on the left.

Down With Tyranny, one of the least responsible blogs in existence, began its headline with “WHO MURDERED THE DC MADAM?” The Raw Story plays it straight, but the comments do not and the third just says “THEY MURDERED HER.” Pam’s House Blend raises the possibility, but admitted it may be “tin foil hat.” BooMan Tribune and The Reaction skirt the same line. But it’s not just the left: I’ve read Michael Silence at the Knoxville News for years, and I’m appalled to see him outright asking, “was it really suicide?” The commenters are no better.

To be fair, not all are doing this. The Brad Blog, known for relentlessly pursuing even the least plausible of voter fraud theories, apparently had relied upon her as a source, and sends his condolences. And some congratulations are due to Gawker’s Alex Pareene, who turns in perhaps his most cautious blog post ever.

One thing that anyone who wishes to speculate about such matters should think about: If someone was going to kill her, they probably would have done it before she turned over her phone records to ABC News. As Sister Toldjah points out, she was facing imminent sentencing and had recently promised she would not go back to jail. Although this sounds like a futile protest of the convicted, if the conspiratorial guessing leaned in the other direction, no doubt some would be playing this up as a key fact.

It bothers me that few are taking time to think about the unjust nature of prostitution laws. That she was prosecuted where the johns were not, and frankly that prostitution laws in most jurisdictions, the District included, take the same prohibitionary stance toward it that has made the drug war and the 18th amendment such obvious public policy failures. Palfrey’s service was fundamentally the same as businesses which operate legally in Nevada, and certainly a better model for what such a service should look like, compared to streetwalking, which is far more dangerous.

Didn’t mean to get on a soapbox here, but the Palfrey case should be considered a prime exhibit of why the current law is broken. Decriminalizing something does not equal a stamp of approval, only an acknowledgment that prohibition is poor public policy. Thanks in part to Eliot Spitzer, it’s been a banner year for prostitution busts already. The circumstances of his case made it an unlikely point to begin discussing a different approach to the problem of prostitution. Here’s hoping the death of Ms. Palfrey will be different.