I was 17 and interned on Capitol Hill. As a smart gal, with high grades and an excellent community service record, it was an extraordinary honor to be selected to get an inside look at the workings of our government on such a high level.
As all these kids must still pretty much have the same qualifications, the deal is to build leadership.
That being said, the opportunities for “monkey business” were almost beyond the best fantasy buffet, especially around so many powerful people.
Once, after a reception, I had taken an offer from a congressman to have him pick me and some others up to take us to another high-profile event. When the good-looking, wealthy, married man from a New England state arrived at my apartment with a box of awesome pearls as “just a gift,” I slammed both the pearl box and the door in the guy’s face.
Duh!
Though these kids in the page program are, by definition, children, they are smart kids. The kids should never have communicated anything but congressional page business with any official beyond pleasantries of weather and school interests.
It is one of the key lessons these “best and brightest” kids need to have under their skulls when they wake up there on the second morning.
Even though powerful people offer pearls of wisdom and other baubles more tawdry, by 17, pages should have a sense of what the sentence “What are you wearing?” means.
