Schock tactics

Cast your mind back to GCSE English (or O-Levels if you're of a 'certain age') - remember the oxymoron? It refers to the a pairing of two contradictory words that have no business being together, like 'bittersweet' or 'living dead'. More recently however, another oxymoron has slipped into common parlance - hot politician.

There was a time when you knew where you stood with your elected representatives. They were either stern, matronly women who looked like they could whack you with a temperance spoon at a moment's notice, or curmudgeonly patricians, with eyebrows could keep a topiarist in gainful employment for the foreseeable future.

Not anymore. Now we've got people like the Miliband brothers who, whilst unlikely to trouble the naked issue of Cosmopolitan anytime soon, are decidedly more attractive than most of the people you've seen interrogated by Jeremy Paxman. Even Nick Clegg has been known to arouse a few trousers in his time.

Over in the States it's even more confusing, with Huffington Post recently naming their 'Hottest Congressional Freshmen' - a bipartisan investigation into the loin-lifting lawmakers of DC. The winner of the poll, proving that even the left-leaning HuffPo has to occasionally admit the the Republicans get something right, was 27-year old Aaron Schock from Illinois - the first member of the U.S. Congress to be born in the 1980s.

If you like your political news coverage to be stuffed with eye-candy, you really need to get out more. But you should also be thankful for young Aaron - who looks like he should be trading fish eyes for immunity on a Potomac edition of Survivor, rather than debating abortion in Congress.

Unfortunately, Aaron may have the body of an Adonis, but he has the soul of Jesse Helms. They say beauty's only skin deep, and Aaron's aesthetic barely scratches the epidermis. He's resolutely opposed to any kind of progressive or inclusive social policy, and has managed to win the favour of many 'old school' conservatives on Capitol Hill.

But it's not all work-work-work for the pretty politico - one of the biggest issues he's currently facing is the accessibility of the House members' gym which he attempts to visit every day. Little wonder, then, that a photo of him in a clingy pair of wet swim shorts managed to cause something of an internet meltdown when it appeared on TMZ.

It's important that he keep in shape - after all, he's now the only one of his siblings not married with children. And as he points out: "I had a group of five or six guys, and we hung out and traveled—ski trips and stuff. They slowly got picked off—married, married, married." Shame.

Maybe Aaron's simply too busy focusing on his career to settle down. Or perhaps he hasn't met the right girl yet. Just as long as no-one suggests that he might be one of the boyz.

Over the weekend, Gawker posted a lovely picture of Schock at a White House picnic that caused a flurry of speculation. Maybe it was the fuscia checked shirt. Or could it have been the jaunty teal belt? Either way, Aaron didn't just look gay, he was so flaming that even Red Adair would have had trouble putting him out.

Not to worry - Aaron dealt with the lazy speculation the way anyone with nothing to hide might react. He burned the offending accessory and tweeted the news, just to be sure.



Way to go Congressman. I'm sure no-one suspects a thing...