The Daily Cal vs. ASUC wars have entered their hundreth year. The Office of the President is hopping mad over this review of the recent student group festival, particularly the parts that strongly imply it was a corrupt deal between AAA and Student Action.

The Asian American Association, closely aligned with the Student Action party, and at least one fraternity will get a portion of the profits....

"I think the event was definitely successful," said ASUC President Jesse Gabriel, a member of Student Action. "In an event like this, everyone wins."

A member of the Asian American Association, who works in Gabriel's office, recruited the group for the event.

A couple of years ago the charge that AAA was owned by SA would hold water; Presidents Liaw and Adeyemo were both AAA members and involved in the group. But recent leadership has tried to get AAA out of politics. Nowadays it'd only be accurate to say that Student Action has a lot of Asian support, as does AAA, and the two really overlap, but there's hardly any evidence of dealmaking between the two.

I'm left confused about the money parts, too. How much did the event cost? $1500? Or was that just for the restaurants part? Did this come from OP's budget, or from another source? What were profits like?

On the flipside, Presidential Candidate Frankenstein complains about the Daily Cal's coverage.

However, a student disengaging from the ASUC is only the partial fault of ASUC officials. The rest of the blame falls on The Daily Californian, which consistently reports misinformation about the ASUC with sensationalist headlines and makes rash judgments about ASUC officers.

Certainly there's been faults in the part, but 'consistently?' and 'sensationalistic?' The major ASUC events this year that made the Daily Cal were: Budget Crisis, battles with the Graduate Assembly, and Elections fiasco. The Budget crisis was kept largely secret, so the Daily Cal had no choice but to depend on leaks and partial information for an important story. The Graduate Assembly stuff had two sides saying different things. The Elections crisis was covered just fine.

To a large extent the ASUC will always have a negative light to the Daily Cal in an inevitable and desirable way. When there's a screwup or controversy, it's very public and lots of information comes out about it. It also tends to affect student groups immediately and directly. By contrast, the successes are either spread out over several years or secret entirely. AAVP Falcone devoted his entire life to the ASUC this year and had numerous-- secret-- effects on Administration policy. I have no idea what they are. If ExVp Bryant succeeded in convincing 10 legislators to vote our way in private meetings, who'll know about it? By contrast, everyone knows when the bus breaks down...

The Daily Cal's biggest fault is being behind the times in current political intrigue: ie assuming APPLE is still the standardbearer for ASUC reform or that old political rivalries and alliances still flourish. But to assume they're malicious is silly.
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