Fiorina TV ad mocks Boxer for asking to be called 'senator' instead of 'ma'am'

Source: San Jose Mercury News

WASHINGTON -- Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Thursday launched her first TV ad of the general election, highlighting Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's infamous request of a military officer last year to call her "senator" rather than "ma'am."

The straightforward, 30-second ad portrays Boxer as an arrogant career politician caught up in her own importance after three decades in Congress. It opens with a clip of Boxer at a Senate hearing in June 2009 saying to Brigadier General Michael Walsh: "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."

The ad then cuts to Fiorina looking straight into the camera. "Twenty-eight years in Washington, and Barbara Boxer works hard for a title? I'll really go to work to end the arrogance in Washington." It then shows a picture of a tired-looking Boxer above the words, "So wrong. Too long."

Boxer calls the exchange with Walsh overblown, saying she spoke with him afterward and no offense was taken. She has also said it was a formal hearing, and it was appropriate that she be addressed as "senator," just as she addressed Walsh as "general."

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_16155634

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What? So it's arrogant for a woman to ask for common courtesy, says Senatorial candidate Fiorina?

BTW, Fiorina released this ad while in Washington for fundraising events, one of which was hosted by David and Charles Koch.

memebers of HP she felt weren't on her side?

Boxer's camp immediately fired back at the ad. "We're happy to compare Barbara Boxer's record of delivering for Californians with Carly Fiorina's record of layoffs and shipping jobs overseas," campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski said in a statement. "Californians are fed up with the arrogance of CEOs who take multi-million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes while the middle class suffers."

Translated, she has no respect for government. That would make you wonder why she is running. But we all know the answer to that one.

Destroy government!

It's my understanding that HP broke into song when Failorina left... ding dong the wicked witch is dead... literally. It's no secret that they hated her. I hardly think taking this campaign to a personal level will bode well for Carly... so let her.

Is this all Fiorina's got? Seriously?

I am sorry but Boxer really f'ed that one up. All members of the military will refer to senior officers and/or senior members of their civilian service as "sir" or "ma'am." Technically, you are suppose to refer to general officers by their rank and last name, ie "Major General Smith" or just "General Smith" but most of the time juniors call them "sir" out of habit and GO's don't make a fuss about it.

Senator Boxer basically told every member of the military that being called "ma'am" is good enough for her, even though it is good enough for a lot of senior female military officers, who have served longer and it a lot worse places than Washington, DC. It was completely tone deaf and disrespectful of military culture.

The way she should have handled it was to have an aide talk to the general during a break and ask him to refer to Senator Boxer as "Senator" instead of publicly correcting him, and making it look like she was trying to put him in his place.

But they were not in the general's milieu, they were in a Senate hearing room. I think it's a reach to accuse the senator of being disrespectful to to military officers, senior or otherwise, female or otherwise, regardless of where they served or for how long. Good grief!

1. It told the military "Ma'am" isn't good enough for Senator Boxer. "Ma'am" is a term of respect in the military and that was how the general was using it when he was addressing Senator Boxer. Senator Boxer took a term of respect and treated it like it was an insult. If Senator Boxer wants to be called Senator to reflect how hard she worked to earn the title, she should also treat the term "ma'am" with respect, since a lot of women worked just as hard or harder to earn that title.

2. Boxer came off as extremely high and mighty and basically seemed like she was trying to put the military in their place. The military will often use "sir/ma'am" and rank, ie "General Smith" or "Captain Jones" interchangeably. Imagine if you had a military officer who told a subordinate that "sir/ma'am" did not reflect how hard they worked to become an officer and wanted to be called "Major Smith" or "Colonel Jones." The officer would be widely known as pompous jackass and if he/she was a pilot, I promise you they would have a new call sign, probably something like Private Jackass or PJ for short. The other Senators were letting the general address them as sir or ma'am and none of them made a fuss about it.

3. Finally, Boxer did this during the hearing and in public. If Boxer had just sent an aide to ask the general to call her Senator during a break, the general would have made the correction and no one would have even know about this. You praise in public and criticize in private. Instead, Senator Boxer basically embarrassed the hell out of that general in public. I can almost guarantee that the general in question left that briefing after it was over and had to go call the Army Chief of Staff and the JCS and tell them that there had been an issue at his hearing and they would be dealing with it for a bit.

Whether members of this board like it or not, Boxer shot herself in the foot on this one when it could have been easily avoided. She also did not apologize to the general in public when offered the chance. There are a lot of military members who have not forgotten this episode and the fact Senator Boxer never apologized in public for it.

this is all failorina has??

who grew up in areas where it's okay to call black folks the n-word, gays are fa%%%%s

Racist parents listening to their A.M. radio on the back porch while holding a Coors

Majority of folks in rural Missouri where I grew up ended up one branch of the military or other. I escaped...

all just a bunch of stupid, racist homophobes.

Wake the fuck up. The military is the most representative organization of all ethnic and social economic classes in America.

FYI, the majority of the people in the military that use the n-word, are blacks. If a non-black member of the military uses that term openly, it is straight to an NJP or court martial for violation of the military EEO policy.

Here's probably one of the better write-up's I have read..

Will wait for you to post something "better"

01 November 2006
U.S. Military Demographics

Who is in the U.S. Military?

The enlisted ranks of the military have consistently been drawn from the “middle 50%” of people academically, predominantly male high school graduates, who are disproportionately Southern and/or rural. Very few enlisted soldiers ever go on to become officers. To crassly oversimply, this war is being fought mostly by men who are middle income rednecks and working to middle class blacks and Hispanics.

There are about 3,152,000 high school graduates each year.

About 85% of all active duty military troops are men. This Navy and Army are both close to this average, in the Marines 94% are men, in the Air Force about 80% are men. I use the 85% percentage below, although it somewhat overstates the number of enlisted women, while understating the number of women who are officers. In the Army, for example, 16.6% of officers are women, while 14.6% are enlisted; I don't know the percentages in the other services, but expect that they are similar. The officer rank boosts has a lot to do with medical and legal professionals who become military officers after obtaining their professional credentials.

About 103,000 men join the enlisted ranks of the military each year (based on double the number of E-1 ranked active duty military people, typically a 6 months stint time 85%). There are about 1,056,000 male high school graduates who aren’t in the top third of their graduating class each year (about a quarter of the cohort doesn't graduate, so the middle 50% is really the bottom two-thirds of high school graduates). Thus, the military successfully recruits about 10% of this demographic. It gets a much larger percentage of this demographic in the South (which has relatively low numbers of Asians and Hispanics, and relatively high numbers of blacks, compared to the national averages), around 20%, and a lower percentage elsewhere. Soldiers are also disproportionately rural in their origins.

Military recruitment, in other words, thrives in politically conservative areas, while it is relatively anemic in politically liberal areas. The officer's corp is overwhelmingly conservative with some estimates putting the percentage of commissioned officers who are Republicans at 90%. Enlisted soldiers are more politically balanced than the officers, but are still probably a little more conservative than the general public on most issues.


more....

http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2006/11/us-military-demographics.html

If you want a better write up of the actual demographic of the military force as a whole:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qt4g2j-nLToJ:prhome.defense.gov/MPP/ACCESSION%2520POLICY/PopRep2008/summary/chap5.pdf+racial+percentages+of+the+marine+corps+force+as+a+whole&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShtUxjrnEMkXJRRuYS2d2EYz-a3y8VVhPZmpKSaw8msM_9H2qfz57kROvfyM-MFPEIb50DhFevgj5bE4G385WPdyJG2aiSa-Hx2eGDWlUFA46NnMjBrLd3THufEJGu7uDaF1BJN&sig=AHIEtbSbadrYboGjyNENhjhkbEncQbzPoA

More demographic info:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:JK399IS3B9MJ:www.defense.gov/news/Dec2005/d20051213mythfact.pdf+demographics+of+military+recruits+from+rural+vs+urban+areas&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg7hQuPBwE7CesVEB8Y_6W3EwsH1cKgkr0sBlAHpB_3FBTLQSMnYsnArjE70xumfuB0cRGF4Ho-newvRb4BNaNVXJ0uVbwOFcyTgqSuTSbCtyRbgjLm0QVzJqibjHXfZ8G2Aj3I&sig=AHIEtbTp1ii5B3Hk0racbnrVOYLJw0up5A


Your article lost a lot of credibility with the line: "Very few enlisted soldiers ever go on to become officers." That is just BS. If the author had said, "As a percentage, very few...." that would have had a lot more credibility. The Marine Corps and the Army have a lot of Mustang Officers and encourage a promising young enlist men and women to apply for commissioning programs. Not a lot of statistical breaks outs in that article and just a lot of observations, instead of hard numbers.

Again, can you find me another organization that is as representative of the US as the US military?

Either way, please keeping calling the military a bunch of racists, homophobes. It does a lot to help us Democrats in the force to say that Democrats don't hate the military.

Very few enlisted have college degrees when they enlist else they would have gone for the butter bars. Since late 60's every branch requires a bachelors for a commission, either civil or academies. Only exception is appointment out of the ranks to an academy and that's rare.

Now most career minded enlisted are working on a degree. Can't make upper level senior noncom without one, especially E-9. However, that takes time and by the time sergeant or petty office nails it s/he is usually over the age cut off.

Also, the over all number of service women is now over 20% of the AD force, highest in the AF, lower in Army and Corps because of the combat restriction.

What a waste of time.

Barbara Boxer has done a lot for California, people will remember that.

We can't have Fiorina.

address superiors as sir or ma'am. It's near automatic.

That said, Boxer was perfectly correct asking she be addressed by her title.

That's all you got, Fiorina? Pretty damn weak stuff.

...The general wasn't being discourteous or informal. Service members address superiors as sir or ma'am...

I know that because I worked with the ad agency group that did the Army's "Be All You Can Be" campaign. But I don't think Boxer knew, or she would have responded more politely: "I prefer to be addressed as 'Senator.'"

That's how Judge Judy handled it when she had a soldier in her courtroom--he said "Ma'am," and she said, "I prefer 'Your honor.'" But somebody must have schooled her, because the next time I saw her try a military person, he said, "Ma'am--I mean, your honor," and she said, "Either one will do."

But don't interpret that as my taking Fiorina's side. Quite the opposite--I think she's being every bit as petty as she's accusing Boxer of being!

:headbang:
rocktivity

Yup. It's just about second nature. When I was witness in a court case, I had to mentally slap myself to remember to call the judge Your Honor instead of sir. After you've had a no-neck monster stand on your belt buckle and bellow "You call me ma'am, airman!", you never ever forget again.

n/t

Some say she was incompetent and performed to the detriment of every corporation that she was employed by, from AT&T to HP. She was egocentric. I could never vote for her.

That said, Sen. Barbara Boxer stepped over the line as appearing overly pompous for being critical to the Armed Forces General who was an Congressional witness who referred to Sen. Boxer as "ma'm" instead of Senator.

I'm for term limits so they leave <u>before</u> they become entrenched or pompous.

She deserves it, what she did to H-P.

but keep shitting that cash away Fiorina, and of all the issues we have, you go for how some one is address and it would fact be the very same way you would be addressed if you actually won....which I am betting you will not.

What a idiot.

It ought to be her call. This is trivial. Would anyone go after a man in similar circumstances?

I think people *would* go after him.

There is disrespect, and then there are those who would try to turn "ma'am" into disrespect. "Yes sir" and "yes ma'am" are standard respectful terms of respect used in lieu of title. Senator Boxer made a mistake on this and has only herself to blame. There are too many in Congress after too few years begin to believe that Congressional actions should revolve around Congress itself, instead of working to make America a better place. Term limits are needed.

"ma'am" or "sir"?

and that is the point.

The general was taking his time to testify. Each senator has a limited time to question, and rather than use her time to question, she got upset because he wasn't using the title she liked, even though the title he was using was perfectly acceptable.

I think if she was a man, she would have looked even more stupid.

Senator Smith asks a question to general Jones.

General Jones answers the question by saying "Yes sir."

Senator Smith asks the General to stop referring to him as sir, and please address him in the future as Senator Smith..

I think General gives him a "what an a..hole" look, and that senator would be ridiculed, properly in the press and on tv.

I have little quarter for arrogance, but it's especially galling when it's served up with ignorance, as it was in this case.

In the Army if you address someone by their rank it is disrespectful, you call them sir or ma'am. I have never heard that before, but asking a couple of other veterans around here they said that yes, calling a person by their rank indicated you didn't respect them.

Has anyone else heard that?

A superior is addressed in person ma'am or sir unless they state otherwise. Third person by their rank or grade. An enlisted may be addressed by their rank. Most prefer it. "Don't call me ma'am. I work for a living." You're not wrong calling them sir or ma'am, especially chiefs. However, a superior officer or a civilian in the chain or a congresscriter -- always.

An equal or subordinate is formally and properly addressed by grade or rank.

made herself look real smug.

Saw it on Alien 3. Ya I never get tired of saying that.