Bob Shemeligian: Politicians’ sex drives over the limit

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

SHOCK AND OUTRAGE are rippling through Las Vegas in the wake of yet another national sex scandal.

There have been so many others over the years that you need a Playboy pocket calculator to keep up with them.

In the late 1970s, there was Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, the powerful House Ways and Means chairman, whose career was sunk when news broke of his relationship with an Argentine stripper named Fannie Foxe who liked to flounder about in Washington, D.C., fountains.

And how could we forget Ohio Rep. Wayne Hays, who self-destructed when he admitted he had hired a secretary named Elizabeth Ray who couldn't answer a telephone but had various other talents.

Then there was Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who actually dared reporters to write about his extramarital activities with Donna Rice aboard the yacht, "Monkey Business," thereby shooting a cannonball through his presidential bid in 1988.

More recently, there was serial-puckerer Bob Packwood, the Oregon senator whose last name fits him like an Isotoner glove. And we mustn't forget former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds, convicted of having sex with a minor. He also was taped asking his 16-year-old girlfriend, "Did I win the Lotto?," after she told him she had planned a threesome with a fictional 15-year-old Catholic schoolgirl.

And now we read about Dick Morris smiling wanly and waving to reporters after he arrives at his Redding, Conn., home on the tailwind of the scandal over his steamy yearlong affair with a $200-an-hour call girl named Sherry Rowlands. He actually allowed her to eavesdrop on calls to the White House and read speeches before they were delivered.

The resignation of Morris, Clinton's top political adviser, was quickly accepted by the president, who knows very well how tough it is for male political leaders to fight off "the jones."

Most of us will never understand why these powerful men -- the brain trusts of the world's strongest nation -- risk everything for a little heat between the sheets.

To find the answer, I called Veronica at the Call Me Please Me escort service, which is found in the thick "adult entertainment" section of our yellow pages.

"What's with all these guys?" I asked her. "How could they be so stupid?"

"This sort of thing has been going on since the first two cells in the ocean split and the male cell went off looking for a little action," said Veronica, who then took my credit-card number and charged me $10 for the call.

You know, I think the California Legislature is onto something by trying to enact a bill that would require repeat sex offenders to undergo weekly injections to lower their sex drives.

The drug is called Depo-Provera, and if I can find a doctor willing to prescribe the stuff in Washington, I think he and I will be able to talk business.

We'll call the company Chaste Is Good Taste.

It's got a nice ring. Isn't that what Elizabeth Ray said?