Dear Reader, I will state the obvious: the leader of our country, along with many others wielding power, are incompetent, corrupt, immoral human beings whose compromised mental capacities have caused great pain and suffering to millions of families around the world. And each time I think the magnitude of the president’s hubris and the depth of his narcissism have reached their peaks, something happens to extend the outer limits of his intolerable behavior.

It is time for the citizens of this nation to wake up, stand up, and vote for leaders who are dedicated to serving the people and to supporting and promoting the principles upon which our country was founded (give or take a few!) With this in mind, I propose that, henceforth, all candidates for public office must agree to be administered a set of assessments which will determine their suitability to serve as public servants. A non-partisan panel of experts in the fields of psychology, philosophy, law, religion and government will be formed to create questions for these assessments, which will include, but not be limited to, the following “Con Tests:”

Monkey Trial, to measure the degree to which the candidate has evolved as a compassionate, reasonable human being;

Moral Exam, to determine the individual’s understanding of good and evil;

Trash Register, to calculate the person’s ability to differentiate truth from falsehood;

Emotion Detector, to measure the candidate’s degree of empathy and his or her capacity to care about the welfare of another human being;

Dolt Meter, to get a clear picture of a person’s intelligence;

Disbar Exam, to predict how a candidate would react to losing an election;

Liar Gauge, to be measured in pounds per square inch (PSI), used to determine the degree to which the person’s ego is overly inflated;

I Exam, similar to the Liar Gauge, to understand the depths of the candidate’s narcissism.

As previously mentioned, the specific questions asked  during each of the eight assessments will be created by the panel of experts. 

Answers to each assessment will be tabulated and scored on a 1 – 10 scale, with 1 being the best possible score. To establish a final tabulation for each separate test, panelists will use the following question starter: “How likely is …?”

Examples for final questions might include:

  • How likely is it that this candidate would lie to the American Public?
  • How likely is it that this candidate would act for personal financial gain?
  • How likely is it that this candidate will show a lack of compassion?
  • How likely is it that this candidate will flout the principals of democracy?

On the scale, #1 will stand for Highly Unlikely, #10 would stand for Near Certainty.

As is true in golf, the lower the score, the better. I suggest that a score of 24 (an average score of 3 per assessment question) be considered the equivalent of playing par golf. One who plays par golf is quite talented (I, myself, am thrilled when I play bogie golf, the equivalent of a score of 32 on our candidate assessment scale.)

When the eight assessments are complete, the result will be shown as a Scum Total.

Any candidate with a Scum Total of 60 – 80 will be disqualified from running for public office — period. No appeals or recounts will be allowed. Scores of 4 or 5 will indicate that a candidate bears watching but is most likely suitable to assume a leadership position. In an ideal world (not the current one), office-seekers would score somewhere between 10 and 30. We want the equivalent of birdie golfers to run our country.

A major hurdle to overcome in order to put my proposal in place involves the make-up of the expert panel. How will expert men and women be chosen? Is it possible for the American people to agree we have a problem and come to consensus in establishing such a panel? 

Sadly, dear reader, I think not — not in the current climate of Us versus Them. And thus, my last proposal: Let AI choose the panel members. AI, it seems, is our last bastion of neutrality, our best hope for an intelligent, unbiased selection process based on irrefutable data inaccessible to humankind.

Come to think of it, maybe an AI commander-in-chief is what we need.

It sure would beat what we have now.

Gene Stamell votes in Leverett. He can be reached at gstamell@gmail.com.