Barbara Boxer’s snippy confrontation with Brigadier General Michael Walsh on Capitol Hill on June 16, 2009 (Don’t call me “Ma’am,” call me “Senator”) wasn’t a display of a lack of proper military respect for Boxer, it was an open display of contempt from Boxer towards the people who serve in the military. That the Senator’s contempt was open and obvious shows Boxer’s lack of acting skills – most liberals have mastered the art of at least acting like they respect the men and women in the armed services.
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Liberal contempt towards those who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States has deep roots in the hard left that Boxer epitomizes. Look at how Boxer manipulates concern for the casualties of war to ram home her political attack against former President Bush in this email from 2007:
U.S. troops stayed in Vietnam, in the middle of a civil war, for more than ten long and painful years. More than 50,000 of our young people died, countless wounded mentally and physically. Suicides and homelessness still follow too many of our Vietnam veterans. How many more would have died if George W. Bush had been President in the 1970’s? How many more of our troops and innocent Iraqis will die if we don’t finally end this war?
One wonders how many of the suicides Boxer mentions were due to the hostile reception the left gave our returning veterans…
Today the left “loves the soldier” but “hates the war” – this is a cop-out. You cannot separate the soldier from his mission. Perhaps that’s why Boxer’s ideological allies “honor” our heroic fallen who return in caskets by using them as political symbols to attack the very thing our heroes were fighting for: our liberty and our safety. Evidence of the left’s scorn for the military is manifold: the widespread effort to ban ROTC from campuses and in San Francisco’s perennial effort to eject any military presence in their city (the City by the Bay approved a “College, Not Combat” measure in 2005 telling military recruiters to stay out of the city’s high schools).
Why are liberals uncomfortable with the military? Why do some liberals apparently despise our military? Is it because the armed services remind them that not every international dispute can be solved with soothing words uttered by a diplomat? Is it because they view military expenditures as taking money away from greater health and welfare spending? Do the heroes who serve show them that the world is not perfect and can never be made so by trillions of dollars of new government handouts?
Boxer dressing down of a U.S. Army general in public unfolded during a hearing on the Army Corps of Engineers’ work in New Orleans. When General Walsh, recently returned from Iraq, addressed California’s junior senator as “Ma’am” – a perfectly acceptable sign of military respect to both a U.S. Senator or a senior female officer, Boxer immediately responded, “I had a… You know… do me a favor, could you say ‘Senator’ instead of ‘Ma’am’ – it’s just a thing, I worked so hard to get that title so I’d appreciate it, yes thank you.”
According to the U.S. Army’s own guide to protocol, Members of the U.S. Senate should be verbally addressed as “Sir,” “Ma’am” or “Senator.” So, General Walsh was simply following longstanding tradition.
When addressing senior officers, with the exception of generals whom most junior officers and enlisted personnel usually call “General” more than “Sir” the most respectful form of address is “Sir” or “Ma’am.” Ironically, use of the actual rank in address is oftentimes used in situations when the senior officer has not yet earned respect from an enlisted person, as in “Yes, Lieutenant!” as opposed to “Yes, Ma’am!”
Of course, this wasn’t Barbara Boxer’s first confrontation with the U.S. military – not by a long shot. Boxer cut her political teeth on the anti-Vietnam war protests back in the day and never really changed her outlook on the uniformed defenders of the Constitution of the United States. Who can forget her confrontation with American hero Gen. David Petraeus back in 2007? Boxer called Gen. Petraeus a liar and then wrote a blog for the Huffington Post on September 14, 2007 which she headlined, “General Petraeus, Take Off the Rose-Colored Glasses.” Seen through the lens of time Boxer’s blog rant can almost be laughable were its implications not so injurious to our national security in calling for an immediate end (read: “defeat”) to the war in Iraq.
Perhaps it’s time for the Barbara Boxer to have a new title: “Ex-Senator.”
Mr. DeVore (R.-Irvine) represents about 500,000 people in Orange County California. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 24-years of service in the Army National Guard and is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010 against Barbara Boxer.