So, let’s say you’re a Marine in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. You go 6 – 9 months separated from your loved ones. You go weeks without doing laundry or getting a shower. Some days you don’t have time to eat. Some days you don’t have time to sleep. You have no reliable phone or internet, so the only lifeline you have to your family are the precious few letters and care packages you receive from home. You’re constantly on the lookout for sniper fire and IEDs. Every single day, you worry about whether or not you’ll get to hug your mother again, if you’ll ever kiss your wife, if you’ll get to meet the baby you’ve never seen before. You’re under more pressure than you’ve ever been under in your life.

You know what’s just like that? Being a member of Congress! Well, according to Barbara “Call Me Senator” Boxer, anyways.

At a campaign event over the weekend in Inglewood, California, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer seemingly equated being a politician to serving in the military –- and an Iraq War veteran supporting Boxer’s November opponent is calling on her to apologize.

“We know that if you have veterans in one place where they can befriend each other and talk to each other. You know when you’ve gone through similar things you need to share it. I don’t care whether you are a policeman or a fireman or a veteran or by chance a member of Congress,” the California senator said. “[Democratic Rep.] Maxine [Waters] and I could look at each other and roll our eyes. We know what we are up against. And it is hard for people who are not there to understand the pressure and the great things that go along with it and the tough things that go along with it.”

“Barbara Boxer’s disrespectful comments underscore just how out of touch she has become after her 28 years in Washington,“ Veterans for Carly Coalition Co-Chairman Lt. Commander Paul Chabot said in a press release, in response to Boxer’s comments. “Equating the experiences of members of Congress with those of brave soldiers who have fought to defend our country is just the latest example in a failed career marked by disrespect for our men and women in uniform.”

Chabot added, “Barbara Boxer owes an immediate apology to all members of America’s armed forces.”

Out of touch is an understatement. How arrogant and self-righteous must you be to compare being a politician to being a police officer, a firefighter, or a soldier? Look, I get her point — she considers being a senator to be a high-pressure job. But, really? I don’t think it’s quite as stressful as, I don’t know, fighting for your life defending our country in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, Boxer has a history of being rude and arrogant towards the military, as Yid With Lid points out. She was one of the 25 Senators to vote against condemning Moveon.org’s notorious “General Betray Us” ad. And who can forget her mouthing off to a brigadier general who called her ma’am — she snootily replied that he needed to call her senator. Class? Respect? Must not be part of her job description.

So when you take these remarks in context, I guess it’s unsurprising. After all, how can you empathize with the difficulty of the job the military does when you have no respect for the military whatsoever?