Tax Lawyer's Blog

Petty, adjective – having or showing a tendency to make much of small matters; small-minded; mean, narrow, ungenerous, etc.

- Your Dictionary.Com -

This is not a tax related post, but anything that involves the shenanigans of a U.S. Congressman always get’s my intention.

By now, most of you have heard the story:

At a sometimes contentious Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), had a request for Army Corps of Engineers’ Brigadier General Michael Walsh.

During a terse exchange, as Boxer pressed Walsh on why the levees in New Orleans are still not repaired nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, she said to Walsh:

“Could you say ‘Senator’ instead of ‘ma’am? It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title. I’d appreciate it.” 

My Observations

• What is so offensive about calling a woman “ma’am?”
• Would any male Senator be offended had a congressional witness answered him “yes sir” or “no sir”?
• Did the SENATOR have to call the General out on the record, in front of T.V. cameras, on an open microphone?
• Are titles overly important to SENATOR Boxer, perhaps at the expense of substance?

My favorite comments come from Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune:

A Foxnews.com blogger suggests that Boxer forgot that she, herself, had addressed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in similar fashion.

“Few may remember that Boxer called Rice ‘Madam’ three different times during testimony while the secretary of state was appearing before Congress,” Tommy De Seno writes in Justified Right.

“Put aside that in England where the word originates, Madam is used to address the queen or a royal princess. Forget that in America, Madam is an appellation of respect used toward women. It is all still far below Her Liege Barbara Boxer.”

At a time when our troops are being maimed and killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, when young people are risking their lives in Iran to march for freedom, and American jobs are being lost in record numbers, a U.S. Senator has the audacity to complain about a Brigadier General calling her “ma’am?”

Madam Boxer may technically be a ma’am, but she sure has balls.

Lewis Carroll himself probably lacked the imagination to conjure up a Barbara Boxer.

And he wrote THIS:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
        Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
            And the mome raths outgrabe.

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
        The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
            The frumious Bandersnatch!”

    He took his vorpal sword in hand:
        Long time the manxome foe he sought–
    So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
            And stood awhile in thought.

    And, as in uffish thought he stood,
        The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
    Came wiffling through the tulgey wood,
            And burbled as it came!

    One, two! One, two! And through and through
        The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
    He left it dead, and with its head
            He went galumphing back.

    “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
        Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
            He chortled in his joy.

    ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
        Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
            And the mome raths outgrabe.

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