I guess they knew his bark was worse than his bite.
Okay, so, I was dating a guy who ran a lighting/sound/event coordination business and he was booked on New Years Eve to do a party in a downtown Los Angeles loft. He took me with him as an "assistant" - but really I just moved a few spotlights around and then proceeded to get really, really wasted on free alcohol.
I assume that like 90% of the articles in Garden and Gun are about dealing with gophers.
And he can't later say he meant "with a noose because of his approval rating" because that would mean he doesn't know that would be "hanged" and it's own huge PR disaster (but probably only on NPR)