Senator, not Ma'am

There really is no good female equivalent to the make sir; ma'am sounds old-fashioned and even patronizing. But Barbara, er, Senator, Boxer is a pistol all to her own self.

Sen. Barbara Boxer: No ma'am references, please Chicago Tribune

Sen. Boxer: "Don't call me Ma'am"

I guess Grandma is out, too. The right wing press and pundits are having a field day with this one. Sean Hannity must've wet his pants in glee. Witness this exchange (McCain can almost be a decent sort, then he consorts with the likes of Hannity and gives lie to that possibility.)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) mischievously lampooned the request by a fellow senator that an Army brigadier general refer to her as “Senator” rather than “Ma’am.”

“Thank you for calling me ‘Senator’ and not ‘sir,” McCain said with a mischievous grin as he began an interview Thursday night on Sean Hannity’s “Hannity” show on the Fox News Channel.

As a tease at the top of the show, Hannity had played an exchange – widely circulated on YouTube – in which Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) scolded an Army brigadier general who had called her “Ma’am.”

After McCain’s quip, Hannity said with a big chuckle: “If I called you ‘Ma’am,’ I’d really be in trouble. But we’ll get into that later in the program. You know what: You’re as big a trouble maker as I am, by the way – for the record.”

Putz.