It’s been a pretty crazy month in the worlds of sports and politics, hasn’t it? In the sports world, the Clones beat the Hawks in football, Mark McGwire hit 70 — that’s right, 70 — home runs, and the Cubs are going to the playoffs. Meanwhile, the political world has nearly mirrored the success of the sports world, with Clinton’s hormonal hijinks embarrassing the country over and over.

The question now is what to do about this. I don’t mean what to do about the Cubs making the playoffs; that answer is quite simple (I can already hear the rumbling of the “L” train). I’m talking about what to do about the hound in chief.

It’s pretty clear by this point that Clinton is a philanderer and an adulterer. Not that this alone makes him incapable of leading the free world, but it is obvious that this fact becoming common knowledge worldwide has seriously diminished his ability to lead.

How can he possibly be negotiating peace talks between warring factions in far-off countries when negotiators are thinking to themselves, “A cigar? Right there? What kind of pervert is this?”

The problem goes beyond just the foreign diplomacy aspect; it also affects us domestically. Think back to those 10th grade history lessons. Remember something called balance of power? The legislative checks on the executive, the judicial checks on the legislative and the executive checks on the judicial.

This wonderful system of checks and balances is based on a government in which all three branches of government have, for the most part, the same amount of power. If one branch gets grotesquely stronger or weaker than the other two, it either gets overly potent or impotent, respectively.

Thanks to President Clinton, we are in danger of developing a problem of this nature. It happened in a similar way when Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 by the dramatically over-powerful radical Republican Congress. Johnson was impeached by the House and came one vote short in the Senate of being removed from office. But for the rest of his term, Johnson was politically bound and gagged. Congress had infinitely more power than any of the other two branches for nearly a whole decade.

Getting to the point, when one branch of our government is in crisis, the others get way too much power. With the Congress that we have right now, I have a hard time believing that they are not going to take advantage of the fact that Clinton has absolutely no prestige or influence in any public arena since the Starr report was released.

That brings us back to the starting point. What in the world are we going to do about our president? Impeaching and removing him would throw the country into an even greater political funk than it already is.

A censure by Congress, the most likely outcome, is nothing more than a slap on the hand that solves nothing. Leaving him in office allows Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott to bull rush almost anything past the Congress until January 15, 2001.

I think a drastic time such as this calls for drastic measures. And when I say drastic, I mean creative. Clearly none of the options that we currently are presented with are going to be of any real help.

We should turn to some other options, if you ask me. We have to do something that will ensure other countries, as well as our own citizens, that we recognize the leader of our nation is a sex-crazed lunatic and we don’t intend to just stand by and watch.

Public apology does not work because we all know that even at this moment, Clinton has got some little tramp holed away somewhere who he can talk dirty to on the phone when things get a little stressful in the Oval Office.

The answer to the problem is the same answer that we give when we are forced to deal with repeat rapists and child molesters. Sure, Clinton isn’t really doing anything as bad as those hooligans, but the effect is much, much worse because it directly weakens the country.

I am talking about chemical castration. Strip Clinton of his testosterone, and he’s exactly what he wanted us to think he was. A sensitive leader who feels the pain of his many constituents but yet is not afraid to get tough if needed.

But we could once and for all be assured that Clinton’s endless line of slutty interns and secretaries will stop. Only after such a definitive and convincing procedure could we all be sure that while Clinton is telling us about his new medicare proposal he isn’t dreaming about that 20-year-old nurse he had back in Little Rock.

Clinton would probably have to agree to the procedure, but why wouldn’t he? He has asserted that he is very sorry for what he has done. He almost seems like a guy who can’t quit smoking and every time his girlfriend catches him, he expresses great regret. He wants to quit, he just doesn’t have the will- power to go through with it.

This simply gives President Clinton the willpower via chemical procedure. He won’t have to worry about the whole Monica, Gennifer, Paula thing any more. He can just lead with the passion and the sensitivity that he has always wanted and pretended to have. That is the only solution I see to a situation that otherwise can end only in national crisis. Either that or a steel-cage death-match between Hillary and Bill.

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David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.