Somebody Tipped Me Off About Jonathan Dach a Year Ago With this Weird-Ass Poem
The Washington Post has just published a lengthy report regarding allegations that the White House covered up a volunteer’s role in the 2010 Colombia prostitution scandal. The Post has identified that volunteer as Jonathan Dach, a recent graduate of Yale Law School and Yale College. Dach allegedly brought a prostitute back to his room in Cartagena, and though the White House denied that any of their team members were involved in the scandal two years ago, hotel records examined by the Post reveal that Dach did sign in a female overnight guest (prostitution is legal in certain parts of Colombia; the hotel requires ID to make sure they are not underage).
This came as no surprise to me because this entire story had been told in an anonymous comment on a Yale Rumpus article over a year ago. Full disclosure: I have been on the Rumpus staff since my freshman year and served as its Editor-in-Chief during the 2013-2014 school year. During the transitionary period at the end of the Spring 2013 semester, I was fucking around on the website’s WordPress account, looking through old posts and comments, and discovered the following.
Posted by “Sarah“ from a Hushmail account on May 5th, 2013 on the 2012 Secret Society Issue, the annual roster release of Yale’s secret societies:
Found 100 copies of this poem at a printnow…Who/what is this?
Little Jonny Dach
With his little Jonny cock
Has a secret he wants no one to know…
He once took a trip
Attached to Obama’s hip
Off to Colombia he did go…
The plane barely touched down
when out on the town
Little Jonny decided to play…
A young Colombian girlie
Had his tongue wagging thoroughly
He dug into his pocket and paid…
Off to the room
With no sign of doom
Little Jonny, well, he lasted seconds…
With a giggle she left,
And he, feeling bereft,
Washed his crotch since his day it still beckoned..
Then a media bomb
And it didn’t take long
for the White House to turn out a tale…
“An error!” they claimed
“A number glitch!” they did blame
There is no one but agents to assail!
Once again Daddy’s power
Saved little Jonny in a dark hour
But the Service will soon grab your ear…
You see, Skull and Bones, Book and ‘Snakes’,
You children play at the game of intell.
There is a lesson you will learn
When true heroes are burned
Their enemies are marched into hell…
So listen up Yale and Harvard and such
Your shit it doth stinketh the same
When the day is long over
And Daddy Leslie is covered in clover
They will wish they never played this game.
I promptly googled Dach and, at the time, the only other relevant mention of him online was this New Yorker article about volunteer drivers for the presidential motorcade. I thought about placing a call to the Hilton Cartagena Hotel, realized that I didn’t know how to place an international call that wouldn’t result in massive overcharge on my phone bill, and promptly forgot about it in the rush of finals.
I hadn’t thought about it until January of this year, when Dach reached out to Rumpus to ask that the comment be removed. He had been forwarded to me by the prior Editor-in-Chief (Christina, in this thread). An excerpt of the email exchange is below:
Subject: Rumpus post
Andrea Villena <andrea.villena@yale.edu> Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:02 PM
To: Jonathan Dach <redacted>
Jonny,Christina forwarded your message to me. I haven’t received any emails from you in my inbox or spam folder (did you spell my name correctly?) but I’ve gone ahead and blocked the comment from the site. I don’t enjoy removing things from the Rumpus website and I’m not sure why Master Laurans contacted you so recently considering that comment has been up for probably months. I’m rather busy at the moment so I’ve just gone ahead and resolved your complaint.
Best,
Andrea
Jonathan Dach <redacted> Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 5:13 PM
To: Andrea Villena <andrea.villena@yale.edu>Andrea, thanks very much for removing the two identical comments–and sorry to have had to ask. I was editor of The New Journal and would have been similarly unenthusiastic about taking something off out [sic] website. I hope it was okay in this instance since it was a user’s comment and unrelated to any Rumpus content. And I really do appreciate it.
Not sure how the two e-mails went awry but also grateful you deleted the posts so quickly once Christina put us in touch.
Hope the semester is off to a good start!
It should be noted that in his original message to the prior EIC, he never denounces the poem as false—he calls it “strange and vituperative,“ but not false. I did feel bad for him, as the comment showed up as the second search result on “Jonny Dach.“ But I didn’t delete entirely; I hid it from view and the comment remained on the back end of the website, as part of the WordPress comment tracker.
The poem isn’t particularly impressive in its rhyme scheme but it does get eerie around the seventh stanza (I checked the Rumpus archives, and the 2008 society issue lists Dach as a member of Book and Snake). It’s a weird call to arms against privileged assholes, perhaps written by a surly Secret Service agent who’s mad this kid got away with it (if you are the author or know who it is, please email tips@ivygateblog.com). It’s unclear whom those 100 copies were meant for or where they ended up but perhaps this post will give that author the recognition they were so desperately craving. Ultimately, I believe the blame lies with the White House for covering it up, not Dach—go ahead and hire a prostitute if it’s legal. It’s dumb but, as a non-essential team member, not the biggest threat to national security.
Dach now works as a full-time policy adviser in the Office on Global Women’s Issues for the U.S. State Department.
October 9th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Interesting, but is the adolescent language really necessary?
October 9th, 2014 at 6:46 pm
not, in this case, inappropriate….and I am not prone to hyperbole
October 9th, 2014 at 7:23 pm
And why would a woman editor agree so quickly to remove a truthful comment about Mr Dach?
October 9th, 2014 at 6:16 pm
“Dach now works as a full-time policy adviser in the Office on Global Women’s Issues for the U.S. State Department.”
He has shown a taste for global women. At least we know he’s well researched for his new position.
October 9th, 2014 at 6:21 pm
The real problem here is that the Secret Service agents were punished severely, while the rich man’s son had the benefit of a cover-up orchestrated by the White House. Not a lovely reflection on Yale College, Yale Law School, or, of course, young master Dach. As for the taxpayer paid post he now enjoys, well, it’s perfect parody.
October 9th, 2014 at 7:46 pm
He’s a privileged little prick but what he did was nowhere on the scale of the Secret Service who are professionals paid to protect the President. Even this horrible President.
October 9th, 2014 at 8:31 pm
Whatever happened to the cover-up is worse than the crime? Did it go out of style when Nixon resigned?
October 9th, 2014 at 9:17 pm
No, but it only applies when Republicans are in office.
October 9th, 2014 at 11:03 pm
I’m not going to debate they’re equivalent, but getting a hooker (legal or not) while on assignment with the White House (as a 25-y.o. law student, no less) and later lying about the hooker to the White House is pretty bold.
October 9th, 2014 at 6:34 pm
It’s nice to know this administration is contributing financially to the women of the world.
The ivy leagues are where the rich send their stupid children to get the educated stamp. Any school that graduates 99% is a club, not an institution of higher learning. That’s a higher rate of completion than 1st grade.
October 9th, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Wait… someone in this administration actually supported capitalism?
October 9th, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Presumably the Leslie mentioned above is Leslie Dach, formerly of Wal-Mart and now at HHS. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/23/burwell-appoints-former-wal-mart-executive-to-new-hhs-post/
October 9th, 2014 at 7:21 pm
Where’s the moral outrage over appointing a guy who hires hookers to be a mouthpiece for women’s issues at the UN??? The DNC donor’s son, who embarrassed the White House by hiring a prostitute in Columbia has his actions covered up to protect the administration, and while the SS agents were fired, he was moved to the State Department as a policy advisor on WOMEN’S issues? You can’t make this stuff up.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:17 pm
Too bad the kid or his parents aren’t republicans, because then it would be evidence of #WARONWOMEN!!!!
October 9th, 2014 at 7:32 pm
Current job… sex industry consumer + Policy Adviser in the Office of Global Women’s Issues = why human trafficking is real
October 9th, 2014 at 8:06 pm
What did “Sarah” mean when she wrote “found 100 copies… at a printnow”? What is a printnow?
October 9th, 2014 at 8:45 pm
Sounds to me like the covert agents who were fired for a political cover up will not go quietly into the good night
October 9th, 2014 at 9:20 pm
“now works…in the Office on Global Women’s issues” You couldn’t make this stuff up.
October 9th, 2014 at 10:46 pm
Secret Service writing poetry? HA! I would bet a nickel that was written by someone who thought he was an insufferable douche at GPS or Yale. That is to say, everyone.
October 10th, 2014 at 11:22 am
It was a violation for little Jonny – every Federal employee and contractor has to go through anti-trafficking training at the end of the training in the certification you sign you agree to be bound by US law and the Federal Government rule which prohibits partaking of such services overseas REGARDLESS of its legality in the host country.
October 10th, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Dude was at Presidents Hotel…agents were elsewhere. BTW Does anyone care what the SEALs were doing a few days before they killed Bin Laden? The initial “scandal” was silly… Leave them alone it was legal. They would have been defended if they were gay…maybe given jobs at Global Women’s Center.
October 13th, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Here’s a poem:
Read this in a dash
Who gives a rat’s ass..
October 14th, 2014 at 12:28 pm
It is, in fact, a threat to national security when somebody connected to the president brings an unknown person into a situation where they could be blackmailed or exploited.