“The kids on the S.A. are hardworking and mean well, but the fact is that most Cornellians just don’t pay attention. When they do, they see the S.A. as a cage match’s worth of backbiting, infighting, self-aggrandizing Tracy Flicks.”
So wrote my friend and colleague Dave Wittenberg ’09 in his column “The End of the Student Assembly” (Oct. 24, 2007), anyway.
Why do I bring it up? Because this hardworking, well-meaning kid thinks that it’s high time he told his side of the story — and, yes, Dear Reader, you heard me right.
When yours truly is not visiting with you here in the realm of the Fourth Estate, I can most often be found doing the same with those representatives on — and those of y’all represented by — Cornell’s very own version of the Estates-General.
That is to say, this proud member of the Sun is an equally proud member of — gasp! — the Student Assembly.
Really.
For two years running, no less — the last one spent serving as vice president.
And this, I find, gives me something of an interesting perspective; it is, after all, not every day that you encounter an ink slinger-cum-baby kisser.
We are, to be sure, a very rare breed indeed.
There is, however, a reason that you have never seen me write a word about this in any of my previous columns: rare though we may be, those of us in this situation have, in the past, proven wont to abuse our ink-slinging privileges by engaging in an overabundance of rhetorical baby kissing, as it were, all-too-often turning the space provided us on these pages into thousand-word campaign ads for ourselves and our confreres.
This bad behavior eventually got so bad, in fact, that the editors of this newspaper would, for a time, consider demanding that any and all contributors to the opinion section remove the keys representing the first and nineteenth letters of the alphabet from their keyboards. They settled instead on asking us politely to refrain from using those keys — particularly in succession — unless we had a valid (and newsworthy) reason for doing so.
Well.
This politickin’ pressman is taking the plunge.
“[T]he S.A.,” to quote the very same Mr. Wittenberg to whom I referred at the tip-top of the page, “needs to change.”
I agree — with the sentiment, not with the change he has in mind. The S.A. does need to change, and the Tracy Flick days need to come to an end. Dave suggests that President Skorton “tear down this, uh, Student Assembly”; I suggest something else.
If we really, truly — in our heart of hearts — want to see the S.A. change, we have to be willing to change along with it.
Before it, even.
We. Us. The Sun. The student body. Cornell.
All of us.
We have to start caring.
Think, if you will, about Congress. Just for a minute. I know it’s painful, but do it. For me.
Are you thinking about it? OK.
Now think about how much better of a job Congress could be doing than the job it’s doing right now — or, well, than the job it’s ever done, for that matter. Not too difficult, right?
Finally, think about this: there are hundreds upon hundreds of people — thousands — who get paid to wake up every morning and do nothing but think about Congress. All day. Some of them even volunteer for it. They may report on some aspect of it, lobby its members, track what legislation it passes — but what matters is that they’re all thinking about it.
Somehow, some way, they’re all caring about it.
Imagine the alternative.
Imagine if Wolf Blitzer woke up one morning and decided that Congress was doing such a bad job that he just wouldn’t cover it anymore.
Think that would make things better or worse?
Here’s a secret: congressmen, S.A. members — nothing scares your average politician (at any level) like bad publicity.
For proof, go online and read the letter S.A. President Elan Greenberg ’08 wrote to The Sun in response to Dave’s column. Whether you agree with Dave or not, he definitely got someone’s attention.
Now.
Am I telling you to go out and smear the S.A.?
No. And if that’s the conclusion you have drawn thus far, then you haven’t been paying attention.
By all means, smear it — smear me, smear Elan, smear the whole assembly if you want to. But have a reason for doing it. Care enough about your student government and the university you attend that you know both why you’re doing what you’re doing and that you have justification for doing so.
Heck, maybe even point out what the baby kissers do right from time to time.
Just care.
You keep us honest when you do — and let us get away with bloody murder when you don’t.
Mark Coombs is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at mcoombs@cornellsun.edu [1]. If You Can Keep It appears alternate Wednesdays.
Links:
[1] mailto:mcoombs@cornellsun.edu