My confirmation hearing to Senate was last night, and, in what can only be described as a gross perversion of democracy and justice, I was voted down 0-12-2. I’ll let ODE reporter and blogger Alex “Tomcat” Tomchak take it from here:

CJ Ciaramella’s appointment to the ASUO Senate failed Wednesday after the Oregon Commentator editor responded to concerns he would not take the position seriously by trimming his facial hair in the style of Wilford Brimley and reciting Barack Obama’s inaugural address before the Senate.

Not one senator voted to appoint Ciaramella to the empty seat representing the journalism school after a hearing that forced one spectator to leave the EMU Board Room clutching his mouth to stifle his laughter and several Senators unable to restrain grins.

[...]

Ciaramella refused to definitively answer questions about whether he wanted to be on the Senate in the first place.

“I do want to be on Senate,” Ciaramella said. “But sometimes it hurts me inside.”

Ciaramella said he was attempting to represent journalism students, whom he said “have a black sense of humor.” When Sen. Sandy Weintraub read the letter in which Ciaramella accused senators of being “nominally more intelligent than a trained circus bear,” many senators laughed openly. Afterwards, however, Sen. Hailey Sheldon told Ciaramella she could not vote for him.

“I personally love irony–,” she began before Ciaramella cut her off.

“I don’t actually like irony,” Ciaramella insisted.

Sens. Weintraub and Cassie Gray said Ciaramella’s use of Obama’s speech offended them.

“Maybe your constituents think that’s funny, but I don’t think that’s funny,” Gray said.

There’s more, so much more, such as the part where one Senator questioned the “nefarious underground sources” I cited under the “how you heard about the position” part of my application. I also enjoyed reading the inaugural speech, which had several passages that were strangely appropriate when taken out of context. To wit (emphasis added):

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation Senate, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works [...]. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

I have an audio file of the whole thing, and I’ll be putting it up somewhere on the Internets shortly.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 2:37 pm by CJ Ciaramella and is filed under ASUO, Campus, Entertainment, Humor, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.