Eve Samborn’s unstated campaign to become a tabloid writer is off to a great start.

Her recent editorial contains a wealth of thinly-veiled personal attacks, but lacked direction or a purpose. I took offense to the article for two reasons: one, her “arguments” belittle the efforts of certain students around campus, and two—a secondary but still strong point—there did not seem to be a definitive reason for writing the article; it was poorly planned and even more poorly constructed. Let’s start with the Nelson-Obama parallel.

Samborn spends four paragraphs quoting Nelson’s “Campus State of the Union” address and classifying the language as something that could be “use[d] on the floor of the U.S. House,” only to then to make a concession that undermines her point: “It is true that Nelson did not ever quote Obama.” So why the emphasis on a parallel? Could Samborn have compared the workings of Student Union and other student governments to that of the larger U.S. government? There have been many famous political orators before Obama, and there have been many campus State of the Union addresses before Nelson. In fact, the State of the Union is a long-standing tradition in SU history.  I hardly think a student who did not fall into the apparently small “well-spoken, highly educated black male” demographic would have been compared so strongly to our nation’s leader.

“Pretending to be President Obama?” is a personal attack—in fact, when you put up negatively charged words such as “pretending,” “playacting,” and “charade” against Nelson’s genuine desire to better our undergraduate experience—the article borders on libel.

But that point may be a personal one. For those of you who found the article as directionless and pointless as I did, here is a summary in 42 words: Jeff Nelson is pretending to be Barack Obama (but he isn’t); EST pretends to be doctors (but they aren’t); tutors pretend to be real teachers (which they are not); I pretend to be a real writer (which I most definitely am not). If Ms. Samborn wanted to muse over her non-future as a writer, fine—don’t do it in print. If Ms. Samborn wanted to disparage the efforts of several groups on campus, fine—just don’t do it in print. My problem is that Ms. Samborn takes obvious “shots” at other students, but then attempts to cover her hostile views.

Seeing as how the actions of other students are the occasion for her article, it is strange that Samborn has not committed to a position on the issue of our campus involvements. In order of appearance: “we are all engaged in our own moments of playacting,” then, “Our theatrical pursuits are not harmful or even futile,” then, “the time and effort we spend on campus might be better spent on problems affecting the real world,” and lastly, “I cannot condemn Nelson for his charade […] college should be our time to practice.” Well, Ms. Samborn, which is it? Are we wasting our time, and the time of others? Or are we doing some good?  Does the fact that this campus is our world factor in anywhere?

Ms. Samborn also leaves out a few pertinent points. First, Jeff Nelson has no intentions to become President, and if he did, he wouldn’t want to be Barack Obama. He’d be Jeff Nelson. Second, there is a difference between tutoring (which no one considers “teaching” in the traditional sense) and student-teaching, and student teachers are trained to handle a classroom alone.  A quick visit to the EST website informed me that “All medics are certified in CPR, and at least two of the three medics on a duty crew are Missouri licensed Emergency Medical Technicians;” that is, students on EST do not pretend to be surgeons or general physicians. They are a team of medically trained persons who deal with medical emergencies. Unfortunately, I cannot defend the claim that a Student Life writer is not a real writer—that seemed to be the only nugget of truth in the article.

I believe my last point, however, is most important. It is not okay to belittle the efforts of another student or student group. Ms. Samborn singled out Jeff Nelson and EST, saying that their efforts—“parochial concerns”—were unimportant because we are in college. I happen to think that a more intuitive e-mail system, a comprehensive school calendar, more efficient programming, shorter food lines, more money for student groups, and 24/7 emergency care in three to five minutes is very important.  But maybe I’m the one who has it all wrong.