When Leaders Waste Our Time

This is a draft of a submitted letter-to-the-editor I hope to have published by The Alligator. The final version was trimmed down to their 250-word limit; this version is slightly longer.

As an alumnus and a blogger, I have been fascinated by recent events on the 3rd floor of the Reitz Union. It is well within the rights of SG Treasurer Paul Drayton to name a proxy for up to two weeks at a time without Senate approval. And during the summer, where most of the student body is out of town, it is not totally unreasonable for an ambitious Gator to prefer moving to New York City for a coveted internship that will help him far more in the long run than his current resume line in Student Government.

So, I can understand the position of those who disagree with Christian Duque’s email. What I don’t understand is the vitriolic rants and ravings of so-called leaders who use their officer reports at a Senate meeting to respond to that email. Duque is an alumnus and former senator, not unlike myself, but holds no other position of influence.

Do concerned alumni warrant such a passionate reply from a Treasurer who claims to be working a 10-hour-a-day internship while conducting his SG duties by conference call?

What does it say about this Treasurer, that he reacts almost with desperate paranoia to stop non-existent impeachment proceeding? Does it say he actually sees merit in the concerns raised about his decision to abandon the Student Body to serve his own post-graduation ambitions? That he recognizes creating a proxy without the input of the Senate was wrong? That he hopes shouting down any dissent, any at all, will quelch these questions?

Paul Drayton has only raised more questions and more concerns by his anti-Duque rant than were ever there to begin with. And he has only him and his self-centered ethics to blame.