"Why do some liberals apparently despise our military?" DeVore asks in a statement on his campaign's Web site. He says the use of "ma'am" is "a perfectly acceptable sign of military respect to both a U.S. senator or a senior female officer."

Republican critics in the blogosphere and elsewhere are excoriating Boxer. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., called Boxer "a loose cannon" and an embarrassment to her party.

"I just can't put up with that kind of thing when people think too much of themselves, and we see a lot of that in Washington," DeMint told Fox News Channel.

Boxer is scum.

California's beleaguered taxpayers would do well to throw her out on her kiester at the next available opportunity.