Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the target of a federal investigation for running a suspected prostitution ring, has fallen on hard times.

Her future is uncertain, what with the criminal accusations; powerful people are mad at her, as a couple of them have been outed for making use of her firm’s services; her once-lucrative source of income appears to have dried up entirely; and her assets have been seized.

Luckily for Palfrey, it seems that good Samaritans are drawn to the “D.C. Madam” like flies to honey. First, as The Hill reported July 19, a group of anonymous young men created a searchable database of the phone numbers dialed by Palfrey’s business and set it up on www.dcphonelist.com. Palfrey wanted to release the data to help the public and press determine who her former clients were — so that they could testify at her trial that her escorts did nothing illegal.

The website immediately crashed as eager users rushed to type in the phone numbers of — well, let’s be honest — their bosses.

This time, it was the site’s Web host, GoDaddy, that came to the rescue.

“They came in and offered unlimited bandwidth forever and ever — they thought it was their patriotic duty,” Palfrey gushed.

GoDaddy did not respond to a request for comment on the good deed, but that company isn’t the only heroic stranger Palfrey has encountered. Look for an update in the mostly gray website in the coming days, as another man she had never met recently volunteered to completely revamp it for free.

“He and his colleagues have been working on it all week. They’re going to redesign and make it very professional,” Palfrey said on July 20.

Then she got a call from a public relations firm offering its services, gratis. Palfrey said they are still deciding whether they will work together.

“Daddy did not raise a fool here,” Palfrey said. “These people need to come help me. We need the help.”
 

National Press Club chef ready to dish out in memoir

Remember that time when you were at the National Press Club, had a few too many, and embarrassed yourself? And how relieved you were that nobody ever mentioned it? Well, this announcement might interest you:

After 15 years of catering to the eclectic tastes of thousands of members and guests of the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate, Chef Jim Swenson is putting it all down for posterity.

The 50-year-old Swenson is hard at work on his memoir about cooking for the great, near-great, and not-so-great who have dined at the Press Club since he took over the kitchen in 1992. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are just two of the more prominent names.

 He’s already written a couple of chapters and hopes to finish the book for Wylie & Sons sometime next year. “It’s amazing how much freedom I’ve had here,” Swenson said.

 Fortunately for the heavy drinkers and picky eaters, Swenson claims the book won’t be of the tell-all variety. “But I might have some tongue-in-cheek stories to tell,” he adds.

Swenson’s still working on a title, but he’s leaning toward “Cooking for the Bully Pulpit.”
 

You can take Portman out of Washington, but can you take politics out of Portman?