Writings - The Daily Tar Heel

N.C. State student takes issue with ASG editorial

Issue Date: 8/24/07 Section: Letters to the Editor

[to read the abridged and horribly edited piece the DTH printed, visit this link:
http://www.dailytarheel.com/news/2007/08/24/LettersToTheEditor/N.c-State.Student.Takes.Issue.With.Asg.Editorial-2936103.shtml
The unabridged original submission follows below. -TGD]

Dear Editor,

I recognize that preening, self-righteous arrogance is the birthright of every UNC student, but I remain mystified by both the tone and content of your August 23 editorial "Hate to say we told you so."

Aside from the witnesses, lawyers and court personnel, I was the only person in the State of North Carolina to actually attend Mr. Jones's trial. One would hope an event fraught with such dire portents as your editorial suggests could have merited at least glancing live coverage from your paper, rather than a paltry rehash of the same "police reports and witnesses" that were used when you first covered this story in March.

Perhaps a reporter on-hand would have questioned why 2 of the 3 charged parties admitted committing the crimes for which they were indicted, proudly noting they would commit them again if given the opportunity, and yet were acquitted by the judge. Perhaps someone would have wondered how one party choosing to voluntarily grab a car's door handle and refusing to let go constitutes assault by another. And perhaps one of your reporters could have asked why a trial destined to produce such an "onslaught of negative publicity" as you claim was attended by... no one.

Independent of one's opinion of Mr. Jones, there was no conceivable "game plan for damage control" or "policy concerning... an officer's conviction" the Association could have adopted that could both be implemented fairly and at the same time take into account such a gratuitous abrogation of our criminal justice system as his trial. Such is the inevitability when an errant jurist takes her cues from King Solomon instead of the North Carolina General Statutes.

There are plenty of other items your editorial pages could use to justify criticizing the Association of Student Governments; any one of them would have been more beneficial to UNC students than your self-congratulatory nonsense.

With Wolfpack Pride,
T. Greg Doucette
Student Senate President (87th Session)
Executive Vice President of the Student Body
North Carolina State University
http://students.ncsu.edu/

307A Witherspoon Student Center
Raleigh, NC 27695-7318
Phone (office): 919.513.3999
Phone (mobile): 919.606.7158
Fax: 919.515.5898
Email: ssp [at] ncsu.edu

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