Mystery solved.

Close followers of the Chafee-Whitehouse U.S. Senate contest will recall having seen a man in a President Bush mask and a flight suit -- evocative of the president’s famous “mission-accomplished” moment -- in the background at U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee’s news conferences.

Blogger and National Education Association field director Pat Crowley acknowledges that he, indeed, was that masked man.

Crowley said the first time, he did it “as a lark” during a rally outside Warwick’s Toll Gate High School, just before the first of the televised U.S. Senate debates. Having already printed up a batch of “Bush-Chafee ’06: Stay the Course” fliers to hand out at the rally, Crowley said, “a coworker said wouldn’t it be great if George Bush were doing this?”

Inspired, Crowley picked up the mask at a costume store and “it was such a big hit I went and found an old flight suit at an Army-Navy store.” A personal high point came at the pep rally U.S. Sen. Barack Obama led at Roger Williams Park when, by Crowley’s count, 150 people asked to have their pictures taken with the man in the Bush mask.

A regret of sorts: he has had to retire his Donald Rumsfeld mask.

Crowley, 33, of Lincoln, describes himself as a “punk kid with a good imagination.” NEA executive director Bob Walsh said he got a kick out of Crowley’s routine, and “obviously there are a subset of folks [connected to the union] who like to be politically active, but no, this was his own thing.”