Thursday, March 28, 2024

AR-01: “With the buzz cut and the bow tie? This is a nightclub, not a John F. Kennedy cabinet meeting.”*

When first-district voters went to the polls last November, they knew many things about Rick Crawford: owner/operator of AgWatch Network (which was like a farm-centric Little Orphan Annie to all the farm-centric Ralphie Parkers in Arkansas), friend of Pat Boone (huh?), buddy of Big Oil, filer of bankruptcy, rodeo clown (or announcer…something like that).  Yessir, if he wasn’t a jack of all trades, then grits ain’t groceries, eggs ain’t poultry, and Beth Ann Rankin was a man!

What they did not know, however, was that Rick Crawford is SNAZZY!

Move over Rep. Earl Blumenauer, there’s a new bow tie lover in town. Rep. Rick Crawford and his staff have taken a page from the Oregon Democrat’s style manual and are now wearing the signature accessory every Tuesday.

The Arkansas Republican proposed the idea for “bow tie Tuesday” a few weeks back when the staffers were feeling drained after working tirelessly on the continuing resolution spending bill.

Man, it can be SO tiring being obtuse and obstructionist about absolutely everything.

But where did this come from? It’s not like this guy

has a look that screams “bow tie!”  “Bolo tie,” perhaps.

Crawford has long been a fan of bow ties.

Total photos of Rick Crawford on his website: 6 (counting header)
Total photos in which Crawford is wearing a tie of any sort: 2
Total photos in which Crawford is wearing a bow tie: 0
(Bonus–Total photos in which Crawford appears to be wearing the same checkered shirt: 3)

It’s clearly not wearing bow ties that Crawford’s a fan of, so what is it he likes about dressing like C. Everett Koop?

“The great thing about bow ties is they stay out of the way,” he says.”You’re less likely to get an errant splash of chili or marinara sauce on yourself. From a practical stance, you can’t beat bow ties.”

You know what happens if the chili or marinara sauce doesn’t hit your regular-length tie? It hits your shirt.  That is, assuming you are not standing over a bowl of pasta, shoveling food into your cakehole, and are just sitting and eating normally. If those “errant splash[es]” are such a common occurrence, I’d think the long tie might be the better choice.

Then again, not understanding the counterintuitive nature of his statements is nothing new to Crawford.  Why, just today (BOW TIE TUESDAY, Y’ALL!), Crawford explained why he was keeping his government pension thusly:

Rep. Rick Crawford, another freshman GOP congressman from Arkansas, plans to keep his pension.

“Congressman Crawford’s major concerns are funding the government while reducing spending and creating jobs for unemployed Arkansans,” said Anna Nix, his spokesman. “Once he has helped restore fiscal discipline in Washington he can then focus on his pension plan.”

Enjoy bowties for their inability to block marinara. Reduce spending by refusing to reduce some spending. Coming soon: create jobs by killing jobs.

These are not the droids you are looking for.

*Title quote taken from this.

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