“Moreover, we have to stand up to Iran’s attempts to drive for regional dominance. They already control Tehran …. ” — Sen. Tom Cotton
Before getting elected Congressman, then Senator, by Arkansas voters (what were they thinking?), Tom Cotton — despite graduating from Harvard Law — never held a job more than a few months, except for the U.S. Army and his family’s cattle farm.
According to a Daily Kos writer, after getting his law degree, Cotton landed a prestigious federal appeals court clerkship, which customarily lasts for a year, then was hired by the huge corporate law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, where new associates get entry level pay of $160,000 and spend several grueling years trying to make partner. But just a short time later, he went to Cooper & Kirk, another high-wattage law firm based in D.C., but strangely, Cotton doesn’t have a D.C. law license. In fact, he doesn’t any an active law license anywhere; he was licensed in Arkansas, where his status is “inactive,” which means he isn’t allowed to practice law there.
After just a few months at C & K, Cotton joined the Army. Normally, an enlistee with a J.D. degree would get a direct commission as a captain and be assigned to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG). But not Cotton. He went through OCS and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. After four years’ service, including deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, he left the Army and was hired by McKinsey & Co., arguably the world’s most famous and prestigious business management consulting firm — it’s definitely hard to get hired there, and even harder to make the cut, but many McKinsey alumni have gone on to CEO jobs. But Cotton, within months, was gone for unknown reasons. His next employment was 
working on the family cattle farm, a typical gig for scions who can’t make it in the outside world.
“Cotton,” the Daily Kos writer penned, “is clearly good at being elected to office in Arkansas. In his first try at electoral office, he won an open seat in Congress …. Then, after only two years in Congress, he beat [an incumbent] and became a Senator.”
Cotton certainly has impressive paper credentials, and maybe that’s what Arkansas voters fell for. Now that they’re getting a better look at him, it’ll be interesting to see how long he lasts on this job. He’s guaranteed 6 years, which will make the U.S. Senate his longest stretch of employment by far, even if he ends up getting fired again.
Photo: Serial incompetent, or just clowning around?
This explains a lot of things.