VEGETATIVE STATE Sen. Barbara Boxer caught in a fruity deep thought

Then there are Bab's manglings of diction and logic, such as this chestnut: "Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God I'm still alive.' But of course those who died, their lives will never be the same again." Boxer's most egregious crimes against language are on florid display in her self-infatuated novel A Time to Run, which features a California senator embarking on a bold, maverick crusade to protect children from violence. One passage describes "a magical time when the three of them caught the rainbow, found the pot of gold beneath it, and managed to forget how easily and swiftly that fairy gold could slip away." And then there's the ghastly way Boxer envisions a lustful courtship: "Her skirt was very short, and Josh found himself mesmerized by her perfectly shaped, silken legs with kneecaps that reminded him of golden apples—he couldn't remember having been captivated by kneecaps before—and her lustrous thighs."

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