After spending a few days preparing my varsity boys at basketball team camp at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, I return only to find that the world has not paused like I wished.  Instead, the lunacy keeps coming furiously.  Exhibit A: Barbara Boxer considers getting elected a major accomplishment.

by Michael Naragon

The following exchange between Senator Boxer and Brigadier General Michael Walsh took place this week:

“I worked so hard to get that title,” Boxer said as she publicly chastised the general for being polite.  How hard has Ms. Boxer worked?

After graduating from Brooklyn College, she worked as a stock broker for three years.  That concludes her time spent in the private sector.  She edited a newspaper for three years before going into public service, starting out as a congressional aide before running for local office.

She then served as a Democratic delegate for California and used her contacts to become a congressional candidate, winning five straight elections to the House.  In 1992, not content to restrain her lunacy to the House, she ran for Senate, winning in 1992, 1998, and 2004.

She will be up for election once again in 2010, and there is little doubt that the people of California, who apparently have become accustomed to incompetent leadership (i.e. Pelosi, Schwarzenegger, etc.), will send her back to Washington.  So her “hard work” story is very similar to most politicians in Washington these days: a seemingly endless pursuit of power that doesn’t really reward personal accomplishments or skills, unless you include kissing up, spending taxpayer money, and returning pork projects to one’s state.

How about Brigadier General Michael Walsh?

Both Boxer and Walsh were born in Brooklyn.  Walsh went to school in New York, as well, though perhaps not as prestigious a school as Brooklyn College.  He only managed to graduate from Polytechnic Institute of New York, gaining a degree in civil engineering.  Walsh has also earned a master’s degree in construction management from the University of Florida, proving that he can succeed in places other than New York, California, and Washington.  While in the military, he graduated from Engineer Officers Basic and Advanced Courses, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College.

After a lengthy history of moves up the military ladder, Walsh was named Commander for the Army Engineer Corps’ Gulf Region Division in Iraq, moving back to the States when he was appointed Commander of the Mississippi Valley Division, Vicksburg, MS, by then-President George W. Bush in 2008.  His current job puts him in charge of a $7.5 billion public works program.  The boundaries of the Mississippi Valley Division extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, include portions of 12 states, and encompass 370,000 square miles.

He also was named Commander of Task Force Hope.

TF Hope is the designation given to the Corps’ effort in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national response plan to Hurricane Katrina.  Engaging more than 3,800 personnel at its peak, TF Hope was among the largest disaster recovery operations in the history of the Corps of Engineers.

Comparing the two, it’s easy to see why Ms. Boxer might be intimidated by Brig. Gen. Walsh’s expertise and knowledge, two qualities lacking in nearly every Washington politician.  Given her boorish nature, it’s also understandable why the “honorable” Senator Boxer would be uncomfortable being called “ma’am.”  Knowing her California constituency, she probably also feared it may cause some bad feelings if she allowed this… this man to call her by a gender-specific title.

Perhaps on Capitol Hill, being a Senator is a big deal.  Those serving in the buildings there certainly strut enough to make one believe this is the case.

But in every other corner of the United States, when she is compared to someone like Walsh–someone who has actually accomplished things in a competitive environment, Boxer comes off as a pretentious, paranoid, pathetic woman who clings to the trappings of power like a bloated piglet, sucking desperately at the teat of political authority.