Liberals-in-Training?

Having read this from today's Globe and Mail, it seems to me that too many students are grooming themselves for careers in the Liberal Party and believe that they're "entitled to their entitlements." Just because a student is paying more for their university education does not mean they automatically deserve an A for their dollars. A's are given out for effort, significant effort, and a demonstrated excellence and achievement in understanding and expressing concepts/theories/etc. and making them relevant to current discussions.
Full disclosure: I am an A student, I just wrapped up the course section of my Master's degree in political science, and I have done work as a Teaching Assistant. Thus I have some understanding of what is required in order for a student to receive an A in their coursework. Simply showing up for class and "working hard" is not enough; it will merit at least a B in many cases, but in order to achieve an A one must go the extra mile and deliver term papers and exam responses and class discussion comments that exceed what was taught in class and demonstrate a complete understanding of the core concepts and principles involved in their work.
Term papers must illustrate considerable research and be delivered with great care to remain on-topic and focused at the task at hand. Too many students these days consider a web stop at Wikipedia to be "research." They are wrong. Research means poring over a number of resources that have academic merit, and articles that are peer-reviewed (i.e. journal articles and essays). A source that, in its biography of Canada's Prime Minister on the night of his election, refers to people as "douchebags" does not have that merit. Not only must one digest all of these readings, they must also harmonize them to support the central argument of their paper. Often I've encountered papers that rely too heavily on their resources, to the extent that they replace the voice of the paper's author. Such work does not merit an A, in my opinion.
Exams are not mere "tests" in which one can "wing it" or BS their way through and legitimately expect an A as a result. Questions cannot be answered vaguely or incompletely; they must be focused, use relevant and specific examples to support contending premises, and be written clearly and concisely. That last point is often greatly overlooked, and I have been astounded at the poor grasp of the English language demonstrated by many upper-level students. If one cannot express the language at a level of excellence how can they credibly expect to receive a mark of excellence? Having been in seminar classes for much of the year, I hate exams and much prefer being given a take-home test or being assigned another essay. Being on the spot, having to answer important questions in a limited time frame, it is difficult to focus and streamline all of one's knowledge. Thinking about the exam I wrote last week, I can now clearly draft ideas and add concepts that hadn't occurred to me in the freakin' hockey arena which would have made for a better exam result. I probably didn't get an A on it, and while that chokes me, it's largely because I couldn't get all my ideas and knowledge down on the page. But I'm not about to burst into my professor's CRC office and demand an A "because I'm a grad student" or "because I didn't have enough time to add/couldn't think of Krasner's thought." Students need to realize that in order to achieve an A, they have to have work that is at a consistent level of excellence. A turned-in paper may have promise to be modified to become an A paper, but papers are not graded on what they could be, but what they are.
Would it be nice and happy and fluffly if everybody got an A in class? Yes. Is it credible? No. Having marked in the neighbourhood of 250-300 student assignments this year, it would be a travesty to have given all of those students an A for their efforts. It's simple: if you need an A to get into law school or med school or grad school, write papers/exams like an A student and focus like an A student. You're not entitled to an A in a class because you've always gotten A's in other classes, your reputation does not precede you and you don't get it because of who you are, you get it because of what you do and how well you do it.