Forget the war, acts of terror, poverty, genocide, and world hunger. Congress has a new issue to deal with and it has become our country’s newest cause celebre.

What it boils down to is certain congressmen’s inability to keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Anyone who doesn’t know the latest congressional gaffe has been sleeping with Rip Van Winkle – oops, better change that to dozing- don’t want any misinterpretations here – because anyone who is fully conscious has been bombarded with the media’s latest ode to joy.

Yes, Congressman Foley has made inappropriate overtures to certain congressional pages via email – at least that’s the most easily documented misstep – and while some of the pages were flattered, others were disturbed and spilled the beans.

Now Congress, in its infinite wisdom, is considering elimination of congressional pages because the men whom we choose to govern us and to make our laws, obviously have issues with self control and we need to help them. They should probably consider elimination of interns as well because historically, we are aware that the interaction between government officials and interns can also be a bit dicey. Again, unless you were dozing with old Rip back then, you must recall a certain president and a female intern.

What’s good about having both issues is that considering that the pages are male and the intern was female, we eliminate any bias on the issue of sexual orientation. In other words, it’s not only gay men who get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar; it’s straight men as well. That probably will not sit well with the religious right or the leaders of our country but the facts speak for themselves. Besides, since they base everything on being good Christians – and I am not good, bad or indifferent or Christian for that matter, they are of no interest to me except as examples of what can happen when you don’t insist on a rigid separation of church and state.

All this being said, what I find most disturbing is the suggestion, the merest hint, in fact, that we change a system that has apparently worked for decades, because our elected officials cannot resist temptation. What is also disturbing is that with the good salaries, perks and recesses, our elected officials have so much time on their hands they tend to get into trouble.

I don’t have a solution, but it drives me up a wall to realize that because we can’t always find decent, upstanding honorable people to run for public office, we have to settle for the winners, who are in essence the losers, and we have to resort to draconian measures to keep them in office.