The United States has borrowed lots from the ancient Greeks, including such bedrock items as architecture, the Olympics, coinage, theater, and, most important, is the concept of democracy. Visitors to Athens can still view the official drinking cups and tableware used in the 5th century BC, when legislators were wined and dined at state expense. Not much, in fact, has changed since antiquity except the technology.

One aspect of ancient political life has not been adopted, however, and perhaps it's time to bring it back: ostracism. Once a year the Athenians would meet and vote on a simple question: Is anyone aiming at a tyranny, is anyone becoming a threat to the democracy? If a simple majority voted yes, then they dispersed and reassembled two months later. They brought with them their ostracon (a fragment of pottery), on which they had scratched the name of the person they thought represented a threat. The man with the most votes lost. He was exiled for 10 years, and this was thought to calm any anti-democratic leanings he might have.

In other words, the Athenians not only voted people into office, but they had a regular procedure for voting one person per year out of office. It was an option which could be exercised but did not have to be. The exile did not involve confiscation or any other punitive measures; it was designed only to remove an individual from the political arena.

So. We're watching a lengthy and costly and highly politicized recall attempt to remove Gray Davis from the governor's office in California. Would it not be easier to have an ostracism mechanism in place? How much simpler, less expensive and less wearying it would have been a few years ago simply to write either the name "Clinton" or "Starr" on a piece of paper, and have one of those two exiled outside the Beltway for the next 10 years. What would we have lost, except a media circus?