Do you know what a long, difficult road must be followed to become a one-star general? Or, how much training and leadership experience does it take to be the current commander of Task Force Hope, the Army Corps of Engineers’ effort supporting FEMA’s national response plan to Hurricane Katrina?

Brigadier General Micheal Walsh knows. His bio fairly bristles with educational excellence and impressive accomplishments of a fairly unglamorous kind. Just read that bio. Read. That. Bio. His previous gig was Commander of the Gulf Region Division in Baghdad – i.e., in charge of rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq that was run down under 30 years of war and dictatorship.

Yet while giving testimony the other day to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, this thoroughly competent leader and engineer was held up to mockery by the most shrill and arguably the most stupid person in the Senate.


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Barby, we’ll take a look at all that “hard work” you did to become the stupidest person in the Senate. But first, I want to review some of General Walsh’s credentials, because admit it, dear reader, you didn’t read the bio, did you?

Education:

• BS, Civil Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York
• Masters, Construction Management, University of Florida (go Gators!!!)
• Engineer Officers Basic and Advanced Courses
• U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
• U.S. Army War College

Commands (somewhat abbreviated, because you really should read the bio):

• District Commander of the Corps’ San Francisco District, San Francisco, Calif., from 1994 to 1996
• District Commander of the Corps’ Sacramento District, Sacramento, Calif., from 1998 to 2001
• Executive Director of Civil Works at Corps headquarters, Washington, D.C., from August 2001 to May 2003
• Chief of Staff at Corps headquarters, Washington, D.C., from May 2003 to June 2004
• Commander of the Corps’ South Atlantic Division, Atlanta, Ga., from June 2004 to September 2006
• Commander for the Corps’ Gulf Region Division, 2006 to 2008

#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&#&

Now, back to Barby Boxer, who is insistent that she “worked so hard to get that title”. What did she do, exactly [all the below is from Wikipedia]?

Educationally:

• BA in Economics

Non-political experience:

• stockbroker for 3 years.
• Married a slip-and-fall attorney. No, for real. Her husband works workman’s compensation cases, on the side of employees, mostly referred to him by the Teamsters and other unions.
• Apparently wrote for a time for something called the Pacific Sun.

Political career:

• was an aide to Congressman John Burton for several years.
• Was elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors (when you leave San Fran via the Golden Gate Bridge, you go to Marin County)
• Served 10 years in the US House, where she
  • was one of many House members ensnared in the House banking scandal, having overdrafted her account 87 times.
  • accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harrassment, and led a group of female House members on a march to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to demand that Anita Hill be taken seriously.
• In 1992, she ran for the US Senate, in the wake of the retirement of Democrat Alan Cranston, who held the seat for 24 years. She won by 3% against Bruce Herschensohn, after a convenient October Surprise, a last-minute revelation that he had visited a strip club. No, that’s not a misprint.
• In Jan 2005, she filed a Senate motion (in support of a similar House motion filed by Stephanie Jones (D, OH-11)) objecting to the certification of Ohio’s slate of Electors in the election (Bush won Ohio by 2.1%, about 120,000 votes). The motion was voted down 1-74.

So, in the conversation above, there’s one very impressive individual, and one inconsequential idiot. Not only is she alot less accomplished than the man she slighted, she objected to being called “ma’am” rather than “Senator”. Besides the fact that “ma’am” is in almost every instance a term of respect and deference, it is a proper term of military respect for all female officers superior in rank to yourself ["sir" obviously works for male superior officers]. It is stupid and arrogant almost beyond comprehension to have taken General Walsh to task for that.

She did not work hard for her job. She hacked and smeared her way to her position, benefiting from an October Surprise, and has done nothing to distinguish herself since. And now that we know how much she loves to demand respect not earned, I say let’s give her NONE.

Barby

Airhead Barby

Arrogant Barby

Formerly Known as Senator Barby

Competently Converting O2 to CO2 Barby

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By the way, if you live in California in 2010, you should vote for THIS guy to unseat the slime queen (h/t Erick Brockway):

PS. Read Neil Stevens’ introduction to Chuck Devore, and by all means donate here.

PPS. Now that I think about it, she didn’t exactly *earn* her stupidest person in the Senate status either. Joe Biden got promoted out.