Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew gasps in the Senate on Tuesday when he testified to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that “I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., however, drew a markedly different reaction when he took to the microphone to explain how “in my opinion, the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk” and would open the doors for toleration of “adultery, fraternization and body art.”

But while the ship may have sailed on the body art issue in the armed forces ever since Popeye debuted in 1929, the fact that such a retrograde buffoon can exercise significant power over military policy represents a black mark for the Senate’s credibility. Keep in mind that if Republicans win a majority in the Senate any time soon, Chambliss may find himself in a position to chair the Armed Services committee; he’s the fourth-most senior-ranking member, behind John McCain, James Inhofe and Jeff Sessions.

At first blush, such a scenario may seem like a cruel joke — but in many ways, it would signify a return to normality in the Senate. Aside from good governance, there’s no actual incentive for senators to know very much about the impact of the policies they're voting on. Recall the well-publicized incident from June 2006 when then-Senate President pro-Tempore Ted Stevens — fourth in line for the presidency — proclaimed, while chairing the Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee, the Internet to be “a series of tubes”:

“I just the other day got ... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

The Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee, in case anyone was wondering, was (and still is) responsible for oversight and regulation of the Internet.

There’s an old George Carlin skit about pollution in which Carlin memorably dismisses the impact humans have on the environment, proclaiming “the planet is fine. The people are f-----d.” The Senate finds itself in a comparable position. Though institutional reforms may be a useful remedy for eliminating the corrosive impact of principles such as the filibuster and over-deference to seniority, the true problem is that many elected officials are guilty of legislative negligence. Way too many senators and congressmen, when it comes to the business of governing, are woefully uninformed due to willful or genuine ignorance.

The obvious question lurks: Why? To check off the major reasons: increased cynicism and mistrust in the federal government following Watergate and the political ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, increased democratization of Senate elections following the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913 and increased polarization of intra-senate politics all had a part to play in winnowing away the quality of senators elected to office, voters’ expectations of their representatives and the incentive for senators to place public interest ahead of political points.

Identifying a possible solution is harder business. No credible voices would seriously propose returning election of senators to state legislatures. Additionally, it’s fairly tough to fashion a legitimate explanation for why legislators should not, if they have serious doubts about a potential course for public policy, make use of every parliamentary tool at their disposal.

Only strong executive leadership can hope to cut through much of the confusion and frame issues in such a way that exposes legislators that are less than serious. It’s possible that President Obama, by not being a strong enough voice in the fight for comprehensive health-insurance reform, contributed to its current state in legislative limbo. Chances are, Obama won’t be as inclined to trust Congressmen to manage his agenda going forward — it’s not as though they’ve given him a good reason to do so.

Editorials Editor Asher Smith is a College junior from Great Neck, N.Y.