Nut Job

But I would not be convicted
By a jury of my peers
Still crazy after all these years
--Still Crazy After all These Years, Paul Simon

I guess I missed the target
Caught up in a different line of fire
--Finger on the Trigger, Donna Summer
_________

Venezuela's opposition is demanding leftist President Hugo Chavez take a drug test after he said he chews coca leaves to keep up his energy.

"'We are going to ask that the President of the Republic take a toxicological exam, as would any baseball or football player,'" said opposition politician Antonio Ledezma, of the small party Brave People's Alliance."

This concept of drug testing leaders should be implemented by the U.S. and expanded across the political spectrum. Why hasn't the U.S. required their elected officials to be tested for drug usage, much as are professional or even high school athletes?

Taking this a step further, more important even than drug testing is psychological testing. Presently there are no requirements for testing U.S. leaders for pathologies, nor is there a Constitutional test to challenge a President on the grounds of psychological unfitness.

We now surmise the first King George (III) suffered porphyry, resulting in unfortunate fits of insanity leading to a formal Regency in 1811. How much easier it would be to diagnose these afflictions prior to installment on the throne or in the Oval Office.

Being crazier than a mad hatter is not equal to and is more consequential than drug usage. After all, the U.S. President has his finger on the trigger of 20,000 nuclear weapons. Psychological testing is easily justifiable.

Hugo Chavez is a minor threat to world security as he is not sitting upon such a vast nuclear stockpile. The fact that all the major news agencies covered this without addressing the appropriateness of such a request indicates our cultural bias.

Drug testing and psychological testing should be required of all potential leaders, before they are even placed on an election ballot.