Extreme Problems Call For Extreme Solutions

The most striking lead I've read recently--actually, ever--in an economics treatise. From a paper that examines the "principal-agent" problem in cases of political corruption:

Castrated slaves, called eunuchs, were employed by Sultans to guard their harems. This solution to a particularly distressing principal-agent problem is one instance of a general strategy that can be called choosing agents.

What the application of this is to politics I'm not sure. The paper seems to conclude (as others have ) that eliminating the temptation to use public office for personal gain is a particularly intractable problem. But the lead does make you wonder what might happen if, say, politicians were prohibited from appearing on television.