Over many minutes of inspired effort, The Stranger has painstaking reconstructed a chain of interconnectivity that reveals the following: First, that the current edition of the QwestDex yellow pages contains paid listings and display advertising for hundreds of such escort services, sporting provocative names such as Aphrodisiacs, Stilletos & Stockings, Wet & Wild, and Erotic Touch. Second, that QwestDex, which produces such directories in 14 states including Washington, was sold in 2003 for $7.05 billion to Dex Media, which is itself owned by two major private equity firms: Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and the Carlyle Group. As the intrepid lead investigator, I then noticed that the latter firm, a focus of much left-liberal suspicion for its ties to a who's who of former government, defense, and intelligence insiders and for its alleged shadowy involvement in the international arms industry, counts the elder Bush as a paid senior advisor.
There is no word yet on whether King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, who briefly flirted with running for governor in 2004 on the Republican ticket, will launch what could well turn into a politically sensitive investigation of potential Bush ties to prostitution.
The Seattle Times recently published its own shocking findings about the escort industry, which concluded that escorts sometimes engage in prostitution and that their services are advertised in the back pages of local alternative weeklies. It could not be determined prior to presstime whether the Times, in light of the stunning new revelations, would retroactively withdraw its 2000 endorsement of George W. Bush.
