Let’s teach the Oscars how to fill a vacancy

America is rushing headlong into a leadership void: no host for the Oscars telecast on Sunday.

It’s inexcusable, especially considering how many methods exist for filling vacancies in this world. All the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences had to do was pick one.

Instead, we got an announcement that comedian and actor Kevin Hart would host, followed by Hart’s withdrawal over old homophobic tweets, followed by waffling and then an apparent decision to do without a host.

Clearly, the Academy needs help. Allow me to suggest a few models for vacancy-filling.

Let’s begin with the presidential line of succession (vice president, then speaker of the house, then president pro tempore of the Senate, then various Cabinet officers).

Tweak it a bit, and you’ve got an Oscar host. Here’s how it would work:

If the Oscar slot becomes vacant, it will be filled by the host of the most recent Grammy Awards (of late the

second-most-watched of the TV awards shows, after the Oscars). So the position this year would go to Alicia Keys, who capably hosted the Grammys earlier this month. Perfect. She’s already warmed up.

Next in line, again based on size of TV audience, would be the hosts of the 2019 Golden Globes (Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh).

As you get farther down the line, the awards shows— and their hosts— become more obscure. So we could give the Academy the option of choosing a Cabinet member instead.

For example, the iheartradio Music Awards show has a human organ in its title, so it’s roughly equal to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Academy, therefore, may choose from 2018 iheartradio show hosts DJ Khaled and Hailey Baldwin or HHS secretary Alex M. Azar II.

Don’t like that plan? Let’s move on to the Supreme Court model.

Now, heaven knows, we don’t want President Donald Trump nominating an Oscar host. Let’s leave that to the Academy. But we definitely want Senate confirmation hearings because they’re so entertaining.

I’d pay to watch a face-off between, say, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the harrumphing Iowan of the Brett Kavanaugh spectacle, and Chris Rock, the boisterous comedian who hosted the 2016 Oscars.

I haven’t even mentioned the papacy model (pageantry and chimney smoke — could be a winner), the baseball model (pencil in a starting host and yank him for a reliever halfway through), or the Ohio State model (just have athletic director Gene Smith wave a few million dollars around and see who’s interested).

I know they all sound risky, but if any organization should be good at pushing the envelope, it’s the Academy.