Governing the Governors

In a recent article, "Amendment: We Must Change the Interns and Pages," author J. C. Hagan proposes raising the age of White House interns and Congressional pages to 55. While this is obviously a tongue-in-cheek humor piece meant to rip on sleazy politicians, there are other ways to curb the libidos of our lusty electorate.

The main problem with Hagan's proposal is that eliminating attractive staffers eliminates attractive people from the pool of future politicians. Many ambitious and bright young people use these coveted positions as starting points for their own careers. And we all know that we like to elect attractive people to our highest offices.

There is evidence to support the idea that women vote for men they want to sleep with, and men vote for men they'd like to be. Anyone remember Bob Dole? His crusty, nursing home looks didn't stand a chance against Bill Clinton's suave polish. The trend goes back farther than that, though. Many political scientists believe that Nixon lost the presidential election to Kennedy because the debates were televised for the first time in American history. Ergo, we need young, attractive people to pursue political careers. American democracy needs pretty people.

I'd like to propose an alternate solution to Hagan's proposal that we keep young people from serving as interns and pages. Instead of blaming hot young studs for being hot young studs, let's help our Congressmen keep it in their pants. That's where the blame really belongs.

Here are some ways our government could help govern our governors:

1. Determent Devices

The CIA, FBI, and Department of Defense spend an awful lot of time and money on deterring other catastrophes like nuclear missile strikes and espionage. Why not divert some resources to deterring icky White House sex scandals?

If secret agents (like James Bond!) get exploding pens and camera rings, why not use our intelligence to develop devices specifically suited to our politicians' predilections? President Clinton certainly would have learned his lesson had he approached Monica with a box of exploding cigars.

2. Governor Governors

Most cars on the market come equipped with a device called a governor. Should you drive your car over a certain, pre-determined speed, the car's engine automatically shut off. Anyone this has ever happened to quickly learns not to drive 150 miles per hour on the freeway.

With all our crazy nonotechnology and microchip innovations, the Department of Defense surely could invent a governor for humans. When Congressman Foley's brain starts producing sex hormones in response to a visually stimulating but underage page, the governor could switch on to temporarily deactivate him. Or just administer a brutal electric shock to his testicles. Whichever.

3. Eliminate Elections

Cynics claim that political sex scandals get "discovered" right before a major election. Did the Democrats use Republican Mike Foley's penchant for teenage boys as a means to gain congressional control a few weeks ago? Or was the timing just a lucky, pre-election coincidence for the Democratic Party, eager to prove Republicans don't have family values, either?

Who knows and who cares? Perverts are perverts no matter who has the opportunity to profit politically. If we stopped our election cycle in its tracks, we could expose our political perverts any time of the year, regardless of when the media is most likely to produce free spin for whichever party appears temporarily more virtuous.

No more voting would mean no more conveniently timed "sex scandals" in Washington. Of course, it's hard to think of a better alternative to free and fair elections. A lottery system would be absurd, and a merit-based system of governing seems pretty far-fetched. All I know is that there appears to be a strong connection between when people vote and why people vote to finding out who's dropping drawers to dally with the help.